PlantFiles: Pearly Everlasting
Anaphalis margaritacea

Pearly ever lasting grows 24 inches tall and spreads to form a large clump. Foliage is silvery and wooly making it an attractive garden plant both in and out of flower. It is tolerant of poor soils but will do best in full sun with adequate moisture. In mid summer plants are topped with papery white clusters of half inch white flowers. The flowers are an excellent material for drying and will hold the pure white color well without turning brown like many other white ever lastings. Pick them before the yellow centers are visible to prevent them from fluffing out after drying. Anaphalis is a good choice to add to a butterfly garden as the Painted Lady butterfly uses this genus as host plants. In early summer she will lay her eggs and larvae will feed on the foliage. Damage is minor and plants grow quickly leaving it hardly noticeable.

Pearly everlastings are grown not only for their showy clusters of white buttonlike flowers, but for their wooly-white or silvery foliage. Easy to grow, this plant has a robust, upright habit. The flowers are excellent for both fresh and dried bouquets.

Development in our area has pretty much limited the meadows you can walk through to utility breaks through local parks, and this is one of the few wildflowers that can take this type of "management". So we treasure it all the more, especially with the way its woolly "silver" seems to complement the silvers of some of the Japanese "seven grasses" with which they celebrate autumn.

One Japanese woodcut that seems to capture the emotional essence of autumn's flowering grasses and seed pods can be found through images at [HYPERLINK@www.google.com] - key Yoshitoshi + flute into the search box and you should find some great scans that can make seasonal wallpaper on your 'pooter screen. Yoshitoshi's woodcut is called "The Flute Player"; it's a 3-panel triptych; and it depicts a flute player whose music is so magical that the barbarian about to attack is too enchanted to hurt the musician.

Outstanding as a larvae plant for Painted Lady butterfly. My only problem was that it was devastated and eaten to the ground....it has yet to rejuvenate. Also I was unsuccessful in finding a secondary food plant for a couple of larvae I brought in.......