Pearly everlasting is a native perennial in the aster family, and the only member of its genus native to North America. Its stems and the undersides of its narrow leaves are covered in white wool, which gives the whole plant a soft, gray-green look. At the top sits a flat, crowded cluster of small, round flower heads.
What look like white petals are really papery bracts that ring a yellow center of tiny disk flowers. The bracts stay crisp and pearly long after the flowers inside have faded, which explains the name and why people like the plant in dried arrangements. The flowers often carry a faint musky smell.
Male and female flowers grow on separate plants, an arrangement that favors cross-pollination. Bees, beetles, butterflies and moths all visit. The plant prefers open, sunny ground, so it turns up in meadows, clearings, prairies and old fields rather than deep forest.
Visitors notice it most in mid and late summer, when white clusters line sunny trailsides from the lowlands up into the subalpine. Because the bracts hold their shape, the plant still looks fresh when many neighbors have gone to seed.
How to identify it
Erect, leafy stems 1 to 3 feet tall, white-woolly throughout. Leaves are narrow and stalkless, green above and woolly white below, often with rolled edges. Flower heads up to about 0.4 inch wide are crowded in a flat-topped cluster, each ringed by pearly white, papery bracts around a yellow center.
Look-alikes
Yarrow also carries flat-topped clusters of small white heads, but its leaves are finely divided and feathery, and each head has a few true white rays rather than a ring of papery bracts.
Habitat
Dry to somewhat moist open ground such as meadows, clearings, prairies and fallow fields, from low elevations up into the subalpine, on both sides of the Cascades.
Sightings in the forest
854 research-grade sightings in Mt. Hood National Forest on iNaturalist, most recently on November 1, 2026. See them on iNaturalist →