Antennaria alpina(L.) Gaertn.

alpine pussytoes

WFO wfo-0000084327 Accepted WFO 2026-06 5 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–e · 2 observations

This species has been photographed under an open licence only 2 times, so some figures below are different views of the same plant, taken on the same day, rather than different individuals. They are usually different parts of it: the leaf, the flower, the bark.

Antennaria alpina, photographed by Michael D. Pirie
fig. a Michael D. Pirie, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-09-05 / obs. 155369454
Antennaria alpina, photographed by Spencer Quayle
fig. b Spencer Quayle, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141076493
Antennaria alpina, photographed by Spencer Quayle
fig. c Spencer Quayle, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141076474
Antennaria alpina, photographed by Spencer Quayle
fig. d Spencer Quayle, CC0 1.0 / obs. 141076585
Antennaria alpina, photographed by Michael D. Pirie
fig. e Michael D. Pirie, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 155369484

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

The specimen a real sheet, in a real collection

Herbarium
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
Accession
K009000909
Filed as
Antennaria alpina (L.) Gaertn.
Det. by
Weststrand, S.
Collected
Breman, E.; McCabe, S.; Weststrand, S. 2023-09-06
Origin
SE
The sheet
View the digitised specimen (CC BY 4.0)

A real pressed plant, in a real collection, under the accession number above. Not an illustration of one. The holding institution does not serve this sheet’s image to third parties, so there is no photograph here. The record is real and the link goes to it. Where we hold no openly licensed sheet for a species this section is simply absent, and where a sheet never recorded who determined it, that field stays empty rather than being filled in. Roughly half of all herbarium sheets never recorded a determiner, which is ordinary.

Native range 18 botanical countries

Regions where Antennaria alpina is native: Magadan, Finland, North European Russia, Norway, Sweden, Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, Greenland, Labrador, Montana, Newfoundland, Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Ontario, Québec, Wyoming, Yukon MagadanFinlandNorth European RussiaNorwaySwedenAlaskaAlbertaBritish ColumbiaGreenlandLabradorMontanaNewfoundlandNorthwest TerritoriesNunavutOntarioQuébecWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Antennaria alpina, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alaska ASK NORTHERN AMERICA
Alberta ABT
British Columbia BRC
Greenland GNL
Labrador LAB
Montana MNT
Newfoundland NFL
Northwest Territories NWT
Nunavut NUN
Ontario ONT
Québec QUE
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK
Finland FIN EUROPE
North European Russia RUN
Norway NOR
Sweden SWE
Magadan MAG ASIA-TEMPERATE

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Where it actually grows measured, from 157 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -19.9 °C -13.8 °C -4.8 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 9.7 °C 12.7 °C 16.8 °C
Annual rainfall 700 mm 1,094 mm 4,285 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 100 mm 174 mm 551 mm

It is found where winters are severely cold. This is not care advice and it is not a forecast. It is a measurement: we sampled the climate at every one of the 157 research-grade observations of Antennaria alpina that carry a coordinate, and this is the range those places actually span. The 5th and 95th percentiles are used rather than the minimum and maximum, because a single cultivated specimen in a heated conservatory should not widen a tropical plant's range to the Arctic.

This is not a hardiness zone. A USDA zone is the average annual extreme minimum temperature. The figure above is the mean daily minimum of the coldest month, which is a different quantity and is typically far warmer. Reading one as the other would place a plant several zones too warm, so we do not publish a hardiness zone, because we do not have one.

Also published as 19 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Antennaria alpina f. alpina
  • Antennaria alpina f. latifolia Ekman
  • Antennaria alpina subsp. alpina
  • Antennaria alpina var. alpina
  • Antennaria alpina var. cana Fernald & Wiegand
  • Antennaria alpina var. canescens Lange
  • Antennaria alpina var. ramosissima Lange
  • Antennaria alpina var. typica Fernald
  • Antennaria atriceps Fernald
  • Antennaria cana Fernald
  • Antennaria canescens f. fastigiata Böcher
  • Antennaria glabrata f. ramosa A.E.Porsild
  • Antennaria lapponica Selander
  • Antennaria porsildii f. roseola Ekman
  • Antennaria ungavensis Malte
  • Chamaezelum alpinum Link
  • Gnaphalium alpinum L.
  • Gnaphalium monanthon Willd. ex DC.
  • Gnaphalium uniflorum Pall. ex DC.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.