Stylocline gnaphaloides
Everlasting nest straw is a diminutive plant, overshadowed by multi-syllabic common names a long scientific name (Stylocline gnaphaloides). It is native to California and parts of Arizona and Mexico. Although reported as being common in several parts of its range, its occurrence in the botanical literature is surprisingly sparse.
While small clumps may be frequently overlooked, a dense population makes an unforgettable pale silver pathway amongthe early spring sage scrub species.
Everlasting stylocline, everlasting bedstraw, mountain neststraw
Everlasting nest straw is a tiny annual plant that, except for size, resembles the related everlastings (e.g. Pseudognaphalium spp.). The plant is reported up to eight inches (20 cm) high but ours rarely exceed four inches. The plant is gray-green, with long, white hairs. Stems are upright or sprawling, branched or not. Leaves are narrowly oval, less than ½ inch (1.4 cm) long, often with a sessile tip.
Many of the floral components are difficult to observe without magnification. The rounded inflorescence consists of small clusters of spherical flower heads. A flower head is made up of individual florets, which are supported by a common base, the receptacle. The most obvious features of a flower head are the paleas, scale-like structures, each of which is associated with a single floret. A palea is woolly with a central green area on the outer surface and silver, membranous marginal wings that tend to obscure the long hairs. A palea is concave inward and encloses the floret. Individual florets are rarely, if ever, apparent without dissection. Their presence may be indicated by the tips of stamens or pollen, or forked styles protruding from between the paleas.
Florets are either male or female, with both present in a flower head. The receptacle is long and narrow, hidden by the palea. Corollas are long, slim, symmetrical tubes with three to five small lobes. One to five central florets are functionally staminate with four to five stamens forming a column around the sterile pistil. Male florets are surrounded by 12-17 pistillate florets, with inferior ovaries and forked, thread-like styles that are pale, turning dark on maturity. In southern California, plants grow in January and February, starting to flower as the soil dries out, often in March and April.
When the tiny seeds ripen the entire flower head falls from the plant, breaking apart and releasing a loose matrix of paleas and seeds. Soon, the ground is covered with shattered, dry, woolly flower parts, looking like the gray, fluffy debris that collects under a bed.
Everlasting nest straw is native to California, south-central Arizona and northern Mexico. Within California, it is found south of San Francisco, below 4000 feet (1150 m), from the coast to the western slopes of the Coastal Ranges, and along the western edge of the Sierras. It is usually reported from bright, open, often sandy areas within sage scrub, chaparral and yellow pine forests.
In San Elijo Reserve, everlasting nest straw may be found in small patches along the trails. In 2020, perhaps because of the late rains, it formed unusually dense carpets in the more open areas of the sage scrub east of Interstate-5.
Everlasting nest straw is a dicot angiosperm in the sunflower family, the Asteraceae.11 This is one of the two largest families of vascular plants in the world.44,143 “Flowers” of the sunflower family are made up of one or both of two types of flowers, called florets: symmetrical disk florets and strapped-shaped ray florets. These are crowded onto a common base (receptacle), which is surrounded by specialized leaves, phyllaries, The whole is called a flower head, which is often assumed to be a single flower.11,44,49 The main economic value of plants in this family is in their use as ornamentals: sunflowers, daisies, zinnias, marigolds, chrysanthemums, and many more.143 On the other hand, many plants in this family are serious agricultural pests.41
Asteraceae that occur in the Reserve include bush sunflower (Encelia californica), coyote brush (Baccharis pilularis) and California everlasting (Pseudognaphaleum. californicum).
Plants of the sunflower family are divided into tribes on the basis of flower and fruit morphology.11,310 The everlasting tribe is distinguished by the lack of ray florets and by the papery phyllaries that surround and largely conceal the disk florets. Plants in the genus Stylocline have a few phyllaries, but most have been replaced with scale-like paleas, that are distinguished by being directly associated with floret – one palea per floret.
Stylocline gnaphalioides
Everlasting nest straw is primarily self-pollinating. It is thought that the incurving paleas shield the pistils from external pollen while they press the pistils inward toward the stamens at the center of the flowerhead.
We have found no records of everlasting nest straw being used by native Americans. It is possible that the original, indigenous name has escaped modern translation, obscuring the ethnobotanical record.
The genus name, Stylocline comes from two Greek words: stylos, meaning column and cline, meaning couch or bed, referring to the narrow, cylindric receptacle on which the florets “rest”.
