Anaphalis

Pearl everlasting Anaphalis margaritacea, photographed by Pendragon39.

Belongs within: Gnaphalieae.

Anaphalis, the pearl everlastings, is a primarily Asian genus of composite-flowered plants whose inflorescences bear many scarious, usually white bracts surrounding the disk florets.

Characters (from Flora of China): Herbs, perennial, rarely annual or biennial, or subshrubs with somewhat woody rhizome. Stems erect or rosette-forming, simple or branching, densely white or ash-gray cottony tomentose. Leaves simple, alternate, rarely subopposite to opposite, sessile or petiolate or decurrent, oblong or lanceolate, entire. Capitula with many florets, 3-15 mm in diam., subglobose campanulate or subfunnelform, arranged in corymbiform or paniculate-corymbiform branched synflorescences, rarely solitary or 2 or 3 per synflorescence. Plants dioecious or heterogamous, having different types of florets: bisexual sterile florets with predominance of female florets arranged in many marginal rows and 1 to few central male florets, or many marginal rows of male florets and a few central female florets. Involucre campanulate, turbinate, or semispherical, base tomentose; phyllaries many seriate, imbricate, erect or expanding, scarious, lower parts brown, 1-veined, upper parts usually scarious, white or yellowish white or rarely pinkish. Receptacle subconvex or flat, alveolate, without squamules. Male florets: corolla tubular, 5-denticulate; stamens basally arrow-shaped with acerose tail; stigma with 2 short lobes, apex truncate. Female florets: corolla filiform, basally slightly dilated, 2-4-denticulate; style branches long, apex subrounded. Achene oblong or subrounded, with glandular hairs or mammilla or almost glabrous, in predominantly female capitula; achenes of male florets vestigial and usually absent in predominantly male capitula. Pappus in both florets consisting of 1 row of free deciduous white hairs, almost equal to corolla, scabrid, pinnate-incrassate at tip of apex in male florets, filiform and almost smooth or slightly scabrid at tip in female florets.

<==Anaphalis
    |--A. cavei O88
    |--A. contorta O88
    |    |--A. c. var. contorta O88
    |    `--A. c. var. flavescens O88
    |--A. keriensis B93
    |--A. margaritacea BS97
    |--A. royleana O88
    |--A. rupestris BS97
    |--A. subrigida B93
    |--A. subumbellata O88
    |--A. tenella O88
    |--A. trinervis BS97
    |--A. triplinervis B93
    |    |--A. t. var. triplinervis O88
    |    |--A. t. var. intermedia O88
    |    `--A. t. var. monocephala O88
    |--A. xylorhiza O88
    `--A. yunnanensis O88
         |--A. y. var. yunnanensis O88
         `--A. y. var. muliensis O88

*Type species of generic name indicated

REFERENCES

[B93] Breitwieser, I. 1993. Comparative leaf anatomy of New Zealand and Tasmanian Inuleae (Compositae). Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 111: 183–209.

[BS97] Breitwieser, I., & F. B. Sampson. 1997. Pollen characteristics of New Zealand Gnaphalieae (Compositae) and their taxonomic significance. Grana 36: 80–95.

[O88] Ohba, H. 1988. The alpine flora of the Nepal Himalayas: an introductory note. In: Ohba, H., & S. B. Malla (eds) The Himalayan Plants vol. 1. The University Museum, University of Tokyo, Bulletin 31: 19–46.