Photo: CC BY-SA 3.0 (via Wikimedia Commons)
Mountain Everlasting
Antennaria dioica
Also known as Catsfoot, Pussytoes, Cat's-foot Everlasting, Stoloniferous Pussytoes
Key benefits
✦Traditional uses
✦In the mountain villages of the Alps, Antennaria dioica was long kept as a household remedy for coughs and chest complaints, brewed into a simple tea when the damp season set in. Austrian and other Central European folk traditions also turned to the dried flowering tops for sluggish digestion and complaints of the liver and gallbladder, drinking it as a mild, bitter-leaning infusion after heavy meals. Its slightly astringent, tannin-rich nature also made it a familiar wash for small cuts and irritated skin in places where more famous herbs did not grow. It never became a star of the herbal pharmacy the way echinacea or chamomile did, but in the high pastures where it thrived underfoot, it earned a quiet, steady place in the home remedy chest.
How to grow & use it
✦The full apothecary for Mountain Everlasting
Traditional remedies and step-by-step preparations, a complete growing guide, and how to harvest, dry, and store it, all unlocked with HerbLens Unlimited.
- ✦Remedies & preparations
- ✦ Growing guide
- ✦Harvest & storage
From under $6 a month. Free plant identifications always included.
- ✦Mullein
- ✦Dandelion root
- ✦Thyme
- ✦Helichrysum (Immortelle)
- ✦Plantain
“For the poorest, driest, sun-baked corner of the garden, where you want silver-green carpet and papery everlasting blooms that ask for almost nothing in return.”
Antennaria dioica is dioecious, meaning individual plants are either male or female, a genuine rarity in the daisy family. The genus name comes from the male flower's fuzzy pappus bristles, which early botanists thought looked just like insect antennae.
Mountain everlasting has no significant toxicity on record, though large amounts of its natural tannins can be hard on a sensitive stomach.