Go to Midwest Weeds and Wildflowers Home Page
(updated November 27, 2022)
Old Plainsman, Chalk-Hill Woollywhite
Hymenopappus tenuifolius Pursh.
Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)
▲ ▼ mature flowering plants
▲ ▼ mature flowering plants
▲ first-year rosette stage
▲ beginning elongation of stem for flowering
▲ ▼stems with woolly-white hairs
▲ ▼ inflorescences
Hymenopappus tenuifolius
Pursh; Old Plainsman, Chalk-Hill Woollywhite:
(Bayer Code:
not known; US Code HYTE2)
·
U.S. native biennial wildflower that grows 1.5-3 feet tall, producing usually
single, unbranched (except in upper portions when flowering commences), ridged
and with short white hairs on lower stem
·
First forms a rosette of alternate leaves, oval to triangular in outline, with
petioles, bipinnately lobed, gray-green due to many short white hairs,
particularly on leave undersides; flowering stem leaves are smaller and less
lobed
·
Head inflorescences are clusters in tips of upper stem branches; individual
heads are about 0.25 inches in diameter and have no ray flowers but 25-50 yellow
disk flowers
·
Bracts below the inflorescence form a bell-shaped structure and are
greenish-white to pale yellow-green, oval , with round-pointed tips and
hair-covered
·
Flowering is from late spring through late summer
·
Found in dry prairies, pastures, right-of-ways, chalk hills; prefers sandy,
rocky soils
·
Somewhat similar in appearance to Umbrella Plant (Eriogonum
annuum), but umbrella plant has simple leaves, not deeply lobed as on old
plainsman