Pussytoes are also known as "Early Everlastings". Everlastings are flowers or flower seedpods that hold their color and shape well in floral arrangements. Field Pussytoes is a native perennial growing from 4 to 16 inches (but usually less than 10 inches) high to the top of the flower stem.

The leaves are both basal and stem. Basal leaves are up to 1/2 inch wide by 2 inches long with a single vein terminating in a small pointed projection beyond the leaf tip. The underside of the leaf is hairy and very pale in color. The upper leaf surface is woolly and dull gray color but with age, the upper surface of leaves in this species may loose the hair and be smooth and green or simply rough-surfaced and green. This leafy base can form dense mats. There are small linear alternate leaves on the flowering stem which is held erect. The upper stem leaves are flagged at the tip (Flags are flat, linear, scarious appendages of the leaf tips that are similar to the tips of the phyllaries).

The floral array consists of 1 to 8, 1/3 inch long flower heads in either a stalked array (a panicle) or an unbranched flower stem (a raceme). The flower stem is hairy. With Field Pussytoes the new stems are mostly prostrate with very small leaves that overlap each other at the tip of the shoot. These become erect when there is an inflorescence.

Flowers: Field Pussytoes is dioecious, that is flowers are either male (staminate) or female (pistillate) on separate plants. The head is a slightly different shape in each, but generally somewhat bell shaped with female heads being longer than the male. The corolla of the flowers is white. Each flower cluster has from 20+ small flower heads that are not scented. Around the flower base is a series of phyllaries that have white tips. Each flower has disc florets only, no ray flowers. The male flower stamens are exserted making the head, when in flower, looking like a pin cushion. Female flowers have numerous styles.

Seed: Fertile flowers produce a dry cypsela, 0.9 to 1.4 mm long, that each have tuffs of white bristly hair (pappus) and are wind dispersed as they are very small and light. They need at least 60 days of cold stratification for germination and light for germination, so they should not be covered.

Habitat: The Field Pussytoes fibrous root produces stolons (like a Strawberry plant) that create new plants, forming colonies. Stolons can be 2.5 to 18 cm long in this species. It grows best in fields, woods, prairies and grasslands where there is plenty of sun, but only dry to moderate moisture. It is one of the earliest flowering plants in an upland prairie area.

Names: The genus name Antennaria is derived from two Latin words - antenna and aria. These refer to the resemblance of the male (staminate) flowers where the pappus bristles have a thin filament and club shaped head - resembling the antenna of insects. The species name, neglecta, means ' hitherto overlooked', the reference to which is somewhat obscure but is sometimes used when a species was overlooked in classification. In this case A. neglecta was determined at a later date to be the progenitor of two other well known members of the Antennaria. The common name of pussy toes is due to the resemblance of the open flower heads to a cats toes. The accepted author name for the plant classification - ‘Greene’ refers to Edward Lee Greene (1843-1915), American botanist who wrote Landmarks of Botanical History, named or re-described over 4,400 species of plants in the American west and was the first Professor of Botany at the University of California.

Comparisons: There are five other Pussytoes found in Minnesota - names given below. The distinguishing characteristics of the different species are technical and detailed. Flora of North America provides a good key. (Ref.#W7)