#pseudognaphalium

There are at least two plants in New Zealand that have been referred to as Pseudognaphalium luteoalbum, the introduced Jersey Cudweed. In 2022 Smissen et al. revived Gnaphalium lanatum for the very similar native.

The new species probably includes the plants previously described as P. ephemerum but this isn't certain yet, and P. lanatum is still waiting on a proper description. P. ephemerum is seriously threatened by invasive weeds in some of its ephemeral wetland habitats.

Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium 

Sweet everlasting, photographed in Huffman Prairie, one of the few species that didn’t need to be reseeded for restoration purposes post bombing range. While the ethnobotanical uses have been lost due to colonialization and native extirpation during the bountyland bisonwar trail of tears Andrew Jackson is a holywar racist era of the United States History, the non English, Irish and German settlers of the Appalachian Mountains used this species to aid in making their homes and butcher houses to make a strong maple like fragrance allow stagnant areas to smell livable ( even more so with a mix of sweet anise and gray goldenrod dried out added.) As for ecological benefits this is one of the best dry upland short to tall grass species for alluvium and post falluvium sediment stability making it a great native for hillside highway stability and all around erosion control. It is an incredible late season nectar source and also serves as one of 80 native host plants for Painted Lady Butterflies. 

While this species is mainly distributed over western Ohio, it is often confused with both an ILP and Allegheny Plateau distributed species called purple cudweed  Gamochaeta purpurea, as well as the central Ohio distributed prairie species known as Pearly everlasting, Anaphalis margaritacea.

(For this reason If you wait for flowers it can be much easier to key out than when its in it’s basal rosette or floral development phase of it’s phenology. )

also here is a fun link for anyone interested in Huffman Prairie post old biological survey from 2015-2016 or something like that. The book is purchasable online and old feild records are accessible via Lloyd Library and Miami University WT Herbarium: 

Emerging from the low geothermally-pruned shrubbery around the Craters of the Moon. Here's a better photo of the flowers.

AKA Helichrysum luteoalbum, but that's one of the fairly ridiculous umber of synonyms it's picked up ever since Linnaeus first described it as Gnaphalium luteo-album. In 1829, Ludwig Reichenbach transferred it to the Everlasting Daisies genus Helichrysum, which was prescient of him even if the name didn't stick, since much later genetic evidence says that the genus Pseudognaphalium arose from inside Helichrysum.

Jersey Cudweed grows in meadows, wastelands, and edges of forests. It's now so widespread that it's impossible to say where it originated - found on all inhabited continents, now, but probably naturalised in the New World. In Vietnam it's used as an ingredient in rice cakes.