Antennaria howelliiGreene

Howell's pussytoes

WFO wfo-0000001053 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Antennaria howellii, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. a Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / 2022-06-02 / obs. 204453947

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.

Native range 47 botanical countries

Regions where Antennaria howellii is native: Alberta, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Manitoba, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Brunswick, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Newfoundland, North Carolina, North Dakota, Northwest Territories, Nova Scotia, Ohio, Ontario, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Prince Edward I., Québec, Rhode I., Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Wyoming, Yukon AlbertaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoConnecticutIdahoIllinoisIndianaIowaKansasKentuckyMaineManitobaMarylandMassachusettsMichiganMinnesotaMontanaNebraskaNew BrunswickNew HampshireNew JerseyNew YorkNewfoundlandNorth CarolinaNorth DakotaNorthwest TerritoriesNova ScotiaOhioOntarioOregonPennsylvaniaPrince Edward I.QuébecSaskatchewanSouth DakotaTennesseeUtahVermontVirginiaWashingtonWest VirginiaWisconsinWyomingYukon DelawareRhode I.
Native distribution of Antennaria howellii, 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. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Connecticut CNT
Delaware DEL
Idaho IDA
Illinois ILL
Indiana INI
Iowa IOW
Kansas KAN
Kentucky KTY
Maine MAI
Manitoba MAN
Maryland MRY
Massachusetts MAS
Michigan MIC
Minnesota MIN
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
New Brunswick NBR
New Hampshire NWH
New Jersey NWJ
New York NWY
Newfoundland NFL
North Carolina NCA
North Dakota NDA
Northwest Territories NWT
Nova Scotia NSC
Ohio OHI
Ontario ONT
Oregon ORE
Pennsylvania PEN
Prince Edward I. PEI
Québec QUE
Rhode I. RHO
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Tennessee TEN
Utah UTA
Vermont VER
Virginia VRG
Washington WAS
West Virginia WVA
Wisconsin WIS
Wyoming WYO
Yukon YUK

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.

Flowering 112 in flower of 227 examined

Proportion of examined Antennaria howellii in flower, by month
Month In flower Examined Share 95% interval
Jan 0 0 too few examined
Feb 0 3 too few examined
Mar 0 1 too few examined
Apr 8 15 53% 30% to 75%
May 62 88 70% 60% to 79%
Jun 35 54 65% 51% to 76%
Jul 5 21 24% 11% to 45%
Aug 2 20 10% 3% to 30%
Sep 0 11 0% 0% to 26%
Oct 0 14 0% 0% to 22%
Nov 0 0 too few examined
Dec 0 0 too few examined

Peak flowering in May. Each bar is the share of Antennaria howellii observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 112 of 227 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 5 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Where it actually grows measured, from 1,347 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -17.8 °C -11.5 °C -2.3 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 20.6 °C 24.6 °C 27.9 °C
Annual rainfall 457 mm 916 mm 1,775 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 59 mm 154 mm 291 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 1,347 research-grade observations of Antennaria howellii 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. Climate from CHELSA V2.1 (Karger et al. 2017); occurrences from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 46 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 appendiculata Fernald
  • Antennaria callilepis Greene
  • Antennaria canadensis Greene
  • Antennaria canadensis var. canadensis
  • Antennaria canadensis var. isabellina Greene ex House
  • Antennaria canadensis var. randii Fernald
  • Antennaria canadensis var. spathulata Fernald
  • Antennaria concolor Piper
  • Antennaria eximia Greene
  • Antennaria grandis House
  • Antennaria howellii f. concolor (Piper) B.Boivin
  • Antennaria howellii f. howellii
  • Antennaria howellii var. howellii
  • Antennaria neglecta subsp. howellii (Greene) Hultén
  • Antennaria neglecta var. attenuata (Fernald) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. canadensis (Greene) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. howellii (Greene) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. neodioica (Greene) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. petaloidea (Fernald) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. randii (Fernald) Cronquist
  • Antennaria neglecta var. subcorymbosa Fernald
  • Antennaria neodioica Greene
  • Antennaria neodioica subsp. canadensis (Greene) R.J.Bayer & Stebbins
  • Antennaria neodioica subsp. howellii (Greene) R.J.Bayer

and 22 more.

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.