Cotton Batting Plant

Pseudognaphalium stramineum is probably native from South America to western North America; it is adventive in sandy fields on the Atlantic coastal plain, where it flowers May–Aug.

Annuals or biennials, 30–60(–80) cm; taprooted. Stems (1+ from base, erect to ascending) loosely tomentose, not glandular. Leaf blades (crowded, internodes usually 1–5, sometimes to 10 mm) oblong to narrowly oblanceolate or subspatulate, 2–8(–9.5) cm × 2–5(–10) mm (smaller distally, narrowly lanceolate to linear), bases subclasping, usually not decurrent, sometimes decurrent 1–2 mm, margins flat or slightly revolute, faces concolor, loosely and persistently gray-tomentose, not glandular. Heads in terminal glomerules (1–2 cm diam.). Involucres subglobose, 4–6 mm. Phyllaries in 4–5 series, whitish (often yellowish with age, hyaline, shiny), ovate to oblong-obovate, glabrous. Pistillate florets 160–200. Bisexual florets [8–]18–28. Cypselae weakly, if at all, ridged (otherwise smooth or papillate-roughened, glabrous, without papilliform hairs; pappus bristles loosely coherent basally, released in clusters or easily fragmented rings). 2n = 28.

Gnaphalium stramineum Kunth in A. von Humboldt et al., Nov. Gen. Sp. 4(fol.): 66. 1818; 4(qto.): 85. 1820; G. chilense Sprengel; G. chilense var. confertifolium Greene; G. gossypinum Nuttall; G. lagopodioides Rydberg; G. proximum Greene; G. sulphurescens Rydberg