Antennaria mediaGreene

Rocky Mountain pussytoesdark pussytoes

WFO wfo-0000123735 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Antennaria media, photographed by Ryan Sorrells
fig. a Ryan Sorrells, CC BY 4.0 / 2019-07-08 / obs. 108558740
Antennaria media, photographed by John Powers
fig. b John Powers, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 109815899
Antennaria media, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. c Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 148888206
Antennaria media, photographed by Drew Meyer
fig. d Drew Meyer, CC0 1.0 / obs. 146007718
Antennaria media, photographed by Matt Berger
fig. e Matt Berger, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 141194352
Antennaria media, photographed by Alex Heyman
fig. f Alex Heyman, CC0 1.0 / obs. 89510653
Antennaria media, photographed by Shane Johnson
fig. g Shane Johnson, CC0 1.0 / obs. 87939581
Antennaria media, photographed by Rod
fig. h Rod, CC0 1.0 / obs. 52838194

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 16 botanical countries

Regions where Antennaria media is native: Alaska, Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Northwest Territories, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, Yukon AlaskaAlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoMontanaNevadaNew MexicoNorthwest TerritoriesOregonUtahWashingtonWyomingYukon
Native distribution of Antennaria media, 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
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Montana MNT
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
Northwest Territories NWT
Oregon ORE
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
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.

Where it actually grows measured, from 204 observations

Condition 5th percentile Median 95th percentile
Coldest month, mean daily low -20.7 °C -15.4 °C -7.7 °C
Warmest month, mean daily high 13.9 °C 18.2 °C 22.7 °C
Annual rainfall 656 mm 1,300 mm 3,185 mm
Rainfall in the driest quarter 62 mm 162 mm 346 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 204 research-grade observations of Antennaria media 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 7 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 var. media (Greene) Jeps.
  • Antennaria austromontana E.E.Nelson
  • Antennaria candida Greene
  • Antennaria densa Greene
  • Antennaria media subsp. media
  • Antennaria modesta Greene
  • Antennaria mucronata E.E.Nelson

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.