Packera cana(Hook.) W.A.Weber & Á.Löve

woolly groundsel

WFO wfo-0000095447 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Packera cana, photographed by Tim Messick
fig. a Tim Messick, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-08-05 / obs. 149970375
Packera cana, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. b Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 149994741
Packera cana, photographed by Trevor Van Loon
fig. c Trevor Van Loon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 145198682
Packera cana, photographed by Cecelia Alexander
fig. d Cecelia Alexander, CC0 1.0 / obs. 146949090
Packera cana, photographed by John Brew
fig. e John Brew, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 143150872
Packera cana, photographed by dghjertaas
fig. f dghjertaas, CC0 1.0 / obs. 190239286
Packera cana, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. g Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 132121110
Packera cana, photographed by Eric Lamb
fig. h Eric Lamb, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 81704267

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 20 botanical countries

Regions where Packera cana is native: Alberta, Arizona, British Columbia, California, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Manitoba, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Saskatchewan, South Dakota, Utah, Washington, Wyoming AlbertaArizonaBritish ColumbiaCaliforniaColoradoIdahoKansasManitobaMinnesotaMontanaNebraskaNevadaNew MexicoNorth DakotaOregonSaskatchewanSouth DakotaUtahWashingtonWyoming
Native distribution of Packera cana, 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
Alberta ABT NORTHERN AMERICA
Arizona ARI
British Columbia BRC
California CAL
Colorado COL
Idaho IDA
Kansas KAN
Manitoba MAN
Minnesota MIN
Montana MNT
Nebraska NEB
Nevada NEV
New Mexico NWM
North Dakota NDA
Oregon ORE
Saskatchewan SAS
South Dakota SDA
Utah UTA
Washington WAS
Wyoming WYO

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 335 in flower of 465 examined

Peak flowering in Jul. Each bar is the share of Packera cana 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. 335 of 465 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 6 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.

Also published as 17 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.

  • Packera cana f. cana
  • Senecio canus Hook.
  • Senecio canus var. canus
  • Senecio canus var. eradiatus D.C.Eaton
  • Senecio canus var. purshianus A.Nelson
  • Senecio convallium Greenm.
  • Senecio hallii Britton
  • Senecio hallii var. discoidea W.A.Weber
  • Senecio hallii var. hallii
  • Senecio harbourii Rydb.
  • Senecio howellii Greene
  • Senecio howellii var. howellii
  • Senecio laramiensis A.Nelson
  • Senecio oreopolus Greenm.
  • Senecio oreopolus var. oreopolus
  • Senecio purshianus Nutt.
  • Senecio purshianus var. purshianus

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.