Annuals, (1-)3-15(-30) cm; taprooted or fibrous-rooted. Stems commonly with decumbent branches produced from bases, densely or loosely and persistently woolly-tomentose. Leaf blades spatulate to oblanceolate-oblong, 1-3.5 cm × 3-8(-10) mm. Bracts subtending heads oblanceolate to obovate, 4-12 × 1.5-4 mm, shorter than or surpassing glomerules. Heads in capitate glomerules (at stem tips and in distalmost axils). Involucres 2.5-4 mm. Phyllaries brownish, bases woolly, the inner narrowly oblong with white (opaque), blunt apices. 2n = 14.

Flowering May-Oct. Arroyos, sandy streambeds, pond edges, potholes, other moist, open sites; 100-2900 m; Alta., B.C., Sask.; Ariz., Calif., Colo., Idaho, Mont., Nebr., Nev., N.Mex., N.Dak., Oreg., S.Dak., Utah, Wash., Wyo.; Mexico.

Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Low annual, commonly much branched at base with erect or ascending stems 10-25 cm long, herbage loosely floccose-lanate.

Leaves: Wool persistent on stems but often more or less deciduous from spatulate to linear-spatulate leaves, these 5 mm wide and 3 cm long but usually smaller, uppermost ones subtending and exceeding heads, usually lanceolate to oblong.

Flowers: Heads in dense subglobose glomerules at tips of branchlets, each 2-3 mm high, involucral bracts deeply embedded in loose wool, only scarious tips showing, scarious part usually obtuse, often denticulate; flowers and pappus bristles about equaling longer involucral bracts; pappus falling separately or in groups.

Fruits: Cypselae 0.45-0.55 mm, papillate.

Ecology: Found along streams, grassy plains and on valley floors from 1,000-5,000 ft ( 305-1524 m); flowers March-October.

Distribution: Alberta and British Colombia, CAN; south through NM, AZ, and CA, to Baja California, MEX.

Notes: Diagnostics for this plant are the heads clustered at the tips of the stem and branches and the loosely floccose-woolly herbage.

Ethnobotany: Unknown for this species, but others in the genus have medicinal use.

Etymology: Gnaphalium is derived from the Greek gnaphalon, a lock of wool, and palustre means growing in marshes.

Synonyms: Filaginella palustris

Editor: SBuckley, 2010