{"id":364,"date":"2017-09-05T23:19:23","date_gmt":"2017-09-05T23:19:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/?p=364"},"modified":"2025-12-17T14:09:29","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T22:09:29","slug":"plant-week-western-pearly-everlasting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/2017\/09\/05\/plant-week-western-pearly-everlasting\/","title":{"rendered":"Plant of the Week: Western Pearly Everlasting"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
One of the western pearly everlasting specimens from our Native Plant study.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Now that our lab group is working on native plants<\/a> and native bees<\/a>, I thought it would be fun to do a \u2018Plant of the Week\u2019 and \u2018Bee of the Week\u2019 series. \u00a0This entry is from Lucas Costner<\/a>, an\u00a0undergraduate horticulture major at Oregon State University. \u00a0It highlights one of the plants that Aaron Anderson<\/a> is using in his research.<\/p>\n

Out of all the plants we have looked at this field season, the western pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea<\/i>) has been one of the most interesting. Initially not sure what to expect, the overall longevity, profuseness of bloom, and general hardiness in response to the growing conditions at our site and the wrath of some weeders\/mowers have all been surprising. Suffice it to say the name pearly everlasting is well-deserved. These plants, bursting with small white and yellow disk-shaped flowers, can grow up to 3 feet in height and up to 2 feet in width (2).<\/p>\n

The western pearly everlasting is a perennial (2) native to and found throughout most of the continental United States and Canada, excluding the southeastern states and notably North Dakota (1). It is the only naturally occurring species of the genus Anaphalis<\/i> in North America (1), and is hardy through USDA zones 3 to 8 (2). In terms of care, pearly everlasting is very self-sufficient \u2014 just add sun! It grows well in areas with full sun to part shade, is drought tolerant, and requires little in the way of fertilizer or other soil amendments (2). Given the opportunity, western pearly everlasting has been known to spread aggressively in the soil via runners (2).<\/p>\n

These plants are also interesting because they exhibit dioecy (3), meaning that the flowers are either male or female. This is rare amongst other members of the Asteraceae<\/i> family, but it is a great evolutionary strategy to limit self-pollination. Purportedly, the plant plays host for caterpillars of the American Lady butterfly (Vanessa virginiensis<\/i>) (4). Outside of this, however, the wildlife benefits are largely unknown.<\/p>\n

After witnessing the vivacity of the western pearly everlasting myself, I think it would be of interest to anyone looking to fill a particularly dry and difficult area of the garden with a pleasant, native wildflower. While some of the other plants I have written about here (Solidago canadensis <\/i>and Asclepias speciosa<\/i>) are known to be spready, I cannot overemphasize how vigorously this plant has grown in the field. Every week I find myself being surprised by some new plantlet popping its head out the hard dry soil or a new set of inflorescences about to go into full bloom.<\/p>\n

References:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Fertig, Walter . \u201cPearly Everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea).\u201d Forest Service<\/i>, USDA, www.fs.fed.us\/wildflowers\/plant-of-the-week\/anaphalis_margaritacea.shtml. Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.<\/li>\n
  2. \u201cAnaphalis margaritacea.\u201d Plant Finder<\/i>, Missouri Botanical Garden , www.missouribotanicalgarden.org\/PlantFinder\/PlantFinderDetails.aspx?kempercode=j330. Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.<\/li>\n
  3. \u201cPearly Everlasting.\u201d In Defense of Plants<\/i>, 22 Sept. 2015, www.indefenseofplants.com\/blog\/2015\/9\/22\/pearly-everlasting. Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.<\/li>\n
  4. \u201cAmerican Lady .\u201d Butterflies and Moths of North America<\/i>, 30 May 2015, www.butterfliesandmoths.org\/species\/vanessa-virginiensis. Accessed 5 Sept. 2017.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Now that our lab group is working on native plants and native bees, I thought it would be fun to do a \u2018Plant of the Week\u2019 and \u2018Bee of the Week\u2019 series. \u00a0This entry is from Lucas Costner, an\u00a0undergraduate horticulture major at Oregon State University. \u00a0It highlights one of the plants that Aaron Anderson is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8583,"featured_media":365,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1295190,1178798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-native-plants","category-plant-of-the-week","has-thumbnail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/osu-wams-blogs-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com\/blogs.dir\/2786\/files\/2017\/09\/FullSizeRender.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":501,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/501"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gardenecologylab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}