Foothills, montane. Meadows, rocky slopes. Summer.
Above and top left: Little Bear Pack Trail, June 6, 2014.
Bottom left: Ormiston Point Road, Western San Juan National Forest, May 20, 2016.

The silky plumes of the pappus hairs obscure the very narrow pistillate flowers. Pistillate flowers are often, as in these photos, filiform, i.e., thread-like, extremely long and narrow.

A. parvifolia is quite similar to A. microphylla but there are several key differences:

1) The involucre height of A. parvifolia is 7-11 mm, that of A. microphylla is typically 4-7 mm.

2) This stems of A. parvifolia are softly hairy; those of A. microphylla have glandular hairs.

3) A. parvifolia grows from 2-12 cm tall; A. microphylla grows from 9-35 cm tall.

Foothills, montane. Meadows, rocky slopes. Summer.
Little Bear Pack Trail, June 6, 2014 and
Ormiston Point Road, Western San Juan National Forest, May 20, 2016.

These photographs show several other characteristics that, taken together, help set this Antennaria off from others:

It is stoloniferous (runners similar to those of strawberries) and you can see the individual 5 leaf clusters of each new basal rosette that has arisen from the tip of a stolon.

Both sides of the leaves are hairy.

Basal leaves are broad (spatulate to oblanceolate), but stem leaves are quite narrow (linear to oblanceolate). See the arrows at center and top right of the top photograph at left.

Click for the main Antennaria page.