Go to: Keys to Identifying Selected Plant Groups in the SGMEverlasting (Gnaphalium sp.) Primer for the San Gabriel Mountains
Key
Descriptions
Sources
Everlastings, or Gnaphaliums, are generally woolly-leaved plants with small clusters of flowers that seem to remain on the plant forever. Gnaphalium is from a Greek word meaning "lock of wool". Key
Everlastings have bracts or scales, called phyllaries, surrounding the flowers. The flower themselves are extremely small, hard to see and never seem to open wide. But the attractive, shiny, dry, papery scales remain on the plant a long time hence, the name, everlasting. See a diagram of the flower development.
Four different floras or checklists were consulted to make the list below. See the sources and a discussion of the problems with the names here. Not included in this list are pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea, which is not found here in the San Gabriels and strawflower, a commercial plant called everlasting, which is found in nurseries.
The identifications are based mainly on the leaves and phyllary color. Characteristics used in the descriptions are:
- Leaf color: green or white/gray caused by many hairs or woolliness
- Leaf attachment: clasping (surrounding half of the stem in a U-shape) or decurrent (extending down the stem) where, if you would pull on the leaf, part of the stem would come away with it
- Scented: crush a leaf between your fingers to determine this, the scent is not in the flowers
- Phyllary color: the color of the rows of scales beneath the flowers
1. Is the leaf sticky and green on both sides?
2. Is the leaf aromatic and green or gray-green on the top and white underneath?
- Yes. It is California everlasting.
- No. Go to 2
3. Is the leaf spoon-shaped (wider near the tip than near the base) and gray on both sides?
- Yes. It is two-tone everlasting.
- No. Go to 3.
- Yes. It is felt-leaf everlasting.
- No. For all other species, please refer to the descriptions below for now. We haven't found all of them yet. The three species given above are the most commonly encountered.
Descriptions
- Common name: Cudweed, Bioletti's cudweed, two-tone everlasting, two-color cudweed; bicolor=two-colored
- Leaf: color=green on the upper side, white beneath; shape=long pointed arrows; attachment=broadly clasping; scented=yes
- Flower: phyllary color=white to light yellow
- Elevation range: 0 to ~2000 feet
- Locations: Moist Canyon [Eaton Canyon], Mt. Lowe Fire Road [Sunset Ridge]
- Similar species: G. luteo-album has leaves that are light yellow-gray-green on top and white underneath; but are linear in shape, decurrent and unscented
- Comments: heavily scented leaves, bright white stems
Gnaphalium californicum DC. includes Munz's Gnaphalium macounii Greene
- Common name: California everlasting, cudweed; californicum=from California
- Leaf: color=green on both sides; shape=long, pointed; attachment=clasping to decurrent; scented=yes
- Flower: closed, open; phyllary color=white
- Elevation range: 0 to ~6000 feet
- Locations: Eaton Wash, Arroyo Seco, Rubio Canyon
- Similar species: G. ramosissimum has leaves that are green on both sides, but has pinkish flowers and branches profusely. Its leaves fall off before it flowers.
- Comments: sticky, scented, green leaves
Gnaphalium canescens DC. ssp. beneolens (Davidson) Stebb. , Munz: Gnaphalium beneolens A. Davids
- Common name: everlasting cudweed, cudweed; canescens=gray with downy hairs, beneolens=?
- Leaf: color=gray, both sides; shape=linear; attachment=upper leaves decurrent; scented=yes
- Flower: phyllary color=white to straw-colored
- Elevation range: 0 to ~5000 feet
- Locations: La Crescenta, Arroyo Seco; open slopes, under dry conditions
- Comments: scent and leaf attachment separate this from ssp. microcephalum
Gnaphalium canescens DC. ssp. microcephalum (Nutt.) Stebb. & Keil, Munz: Gnaphalium microcephalum Nutt.
- Common name: felt-leaf everlasting, white everlasting, small-head cudweed, cudweed; canescens=gray with downy hairs; microcephalum=small-headed
- Leaf: color=gray, both sides; shape=spoon-shaped; attachment=not decurrent; scented=no
- Flower: phyllary color=white to straw-colored; flower has yellow tips when new
- Elevation range: 0 to ~8700 feet
- Locations: Eaton Canyon, Lower Pacifico Campground Rd, Rubio Canyon, along Angeles Crest Highway, Dalton Canyon Wash; chaparral and open slopes under dry conditions
- Similar species: G. canescens ssp. beneolens is fragrant; G. luteo-album and G. stramineum have linear leaves; G. palustre and G. purpureum have brown to purple phyllaries
- Comments: felty textured, mostly spoon-shaped leaves, heavily covered with matted gray hairs; unscented; common
- Common name: common cudweed; luteo-album=yellow-white
- Leaf: color=light yellow-gray-green above, white beneath; edges curled under; shape=linear; attachment=decurrent; scented=no
- Flower: phyllary color=white
- Elevation range: 0 to ~6900 feet
- Locations: Eaton Canyon
- Comments: introduced plant which is becoming naturalized; fields, waste places
- Common name: western marsh cudweed; palustre=marsh-loving
- Leaf: color=gray, both sides; shape=spoon-shaped; attachment=clasping or decurrent; scented=no
- Flower: phyllary color=brown with white tips
- Elevation range: 0 to ~9500 feet
- Locations: Horse Flats, San Antonio Canyon, Dalton Canyon
- Comments: only everlasting in the area with white-tipped brown phyllaries; very short plant, always found under moist conditions
Gnaphalium purpureum G. peregrinum
- Common name: purple everlasting, purple cudweed; purpureum=purple
- Leaf: color=gray, both sides; shape=spoon-shaped, attachment=decurrent; scented=no
- Flower: phyllary color=brown to purple
- Elevation range: 0 to ~4000 feet
- Locations: Azusa, Altadena, Tanbark Flats
- Comments: only everlasting in area with all brown-to-purple phyllaries; weed, species characteristic of disturbed places
- Common name: pink cudweed; ramosissimum=much-branched
- Leaf: color=green on both sides; shape=linear; attachment=decurrent; scented=yes
- Flower: phyllary color=pinkish to greenish to dull whitish
- Elevation range: 0 to ~2000 feet
- Locations: Mixed Evergreen Forest, Chaparral
- Comments: leaves fall off before flowering; pink; much-branched; endemic
- Common name: Chilean cudweed, cottonbatting plant; stramineum=straw-colored
- Leaf: color=gray, both sides; shape=linear; attachment=decurrent; scented=no
- Flower: phyllary color=straw-colored
- Elevation range: 0 to ~6000 feet
- Locations: Liebre Mtn., Prairie Fork, San Antonio Canyon, Strawberry Peak
- Comments: moist, disturbed places
Sources and Other Web Information
CalFlora Observation records for the San Gabriel Mountains.
A California Flora by Philip A. Munz, University of California Press, 1968.
The Jepson Manual Higher Plants of California edited by James C. Hickman, University of California Press, 1993.
Copyright © 2001 by Jane Strong and Tom Chester.
Permission is freely granted to reproduce any or all of this page as long as credit is given to us at this source:
http://tchester.org/sgm/plants/keys/everlasting.html
Comments and feedback: Jane Strong | Tom Chester
Updated January 24, 2001.
