Pearly Everlasting Flower
Anaphalis Margaritacea, Benth. Composite Family
Stems.—One to three feet high; leafy up to the flowers. Leaves.—Alternate; sessile; lanceolate or linear-lanceolate; two to four inches long; white-woolly, at length becoming green above. Heads.—Of filiform disk-flowers only. Involucre.—Of many rows of pearly white, pointed scales, not longer than the flowers, resembling ray-flowers. Hab.—Widely distributed over the northern parts of America and Asia.
Our wild everlasting flowers are very difficult of determination, and are comprised under at least three genera, Gnaphalium, Anaphalis, and Antennaria. The word Anaphalis is from the same root as the word Gnaphalium, and the species have quite the aspect of Gnaphalium.
The flowers of the pearly everlasting have a peculiarly pure pearly look before they are entirely open, and their sharp-pointed little scales give them a prim, set look, like very regular, tiny white roses. There is a hint of green in them, but they are never of the dirty yellowish-white of the cudweed, nor have they the slippery-elm-like fragrance of the latter. When fully expanded, the centers are brown. The leaves, which at length become a dark, shining green, make a fine contrast with the permanently white-woolly stems. The flower-clusters are loosely compound.