Al Schneider's Rocky Mountains Plant Descriptions

Slender Cudweed
Gnaphalium exilifolium
Aster family (Asteraceae)

Slender Cudweed (Gnaphalium exilifolium) has bright green foliage that contrasts with the numerous tufts of silvery hairs especially prominent around the . The European species (and now introduced into the eastern and northwestern U.S.), Gnaphalium uliginosum is often confused with the very similar G. exilifolium but the former is usually branched, has flower heads terminating branches, and has wider and more distinctly leaves. Slender Cudweed is one of the first plants to grow after fires. The Latin "exilifolium" means "slender leaves." The plant was first described by Aven Nelson in 1902.


©2010 Barry Breckling

Description

plants with stems form 3 to 10" tall, varying from erect and to branching, hairy. Leaves 2/5 to almost 2" long, seldomly over 1/8" wide, or occasionally with hairs. Heads in crowded clusters subtended by long, narrow, leaf-like . are green to brown with pale to white tips. flowers only, purple to white. an .

Field Marks

Short, slender with tight flower clusters and distinctly contrasting hairy and smooth stems and foliage.

© Al Schneider

oblanceolate -- top wider than bottom

linear -- Long and very narrow like a blade of grass.

phyllaries -- Leaflike bracts covering the flowers before opening and remaining under the flower after it opens. Also called "bracts". Only used with the sunflower family (Asteraceae).

achene -- a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. For example, a rose hip holds a few achenes.

disc flowers are those in the center of a sunflower or daisy. Not a ray flower.

An annual plant is a plant that completes its life cycle, from germination to the production of seed, within one year, and then dies.

Bracts are modified leaves associated with a flower.

fruit -- any seed-bearing structure in flowering plants. It is formed from the ovary after flowering.

linear-oblanceolate -- Elongate and exceedingly narrow with the sides more or less straight but gradually becoming broader near the apex.

appressed -- pressed close or flat against another surface as in hairs appressed against a stem.

A simple leaf blade is one that is not divided into separate leaflets.

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem.