Bill's Botanical Forays

The Low Pussytoes (Antennaria dimorpha (Nutt.) Torr. & A. Gray) is a mat-forming low growing perennial  member of the Aster family (Asteraceae) which prefers drier habitats like sagebrush desert and bunchgrass communities.

It is native to western North America from Southern British Columbia to Northern California to Nebraska. In Washington, it is found in all but two counties east of  the Cascades Crest.

 

The Low Pussytoes is dioecious, meaning that male (staminate) flowers and female (pistillate) flowers are born on separate plants, or in other words sexually dimorphic. (Thus the species name dimorpha.)

The mats are formed at the top of a many-branched caudex (type of tap root.)

The plant pictured here mature female flowers. Pictures taken at the Vantage Overlook along Interstate 90.