Common Name:
SMALL PUSSYTOES
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Coefficient of Conservatism:
2
Coefficient of Wetness:
5
Wetness Index:
UPL
Physiognomy:
Nt P-Forb
M. White
Can be expected almost anywhere in dry open places. Frequent on rock ledges and outcrops of all kinds and in sandy or rocky savanna (especially in openings and clearings) with jack pine, oak, aspen, and/or red maple; sometimes on moist shores; fields, roadsides, banks, even in lawns.
Staminate clones are very rare in this species.
Subsp. howellii is western and three subsp. occur in Michigan. Cauline leaves of subsp. canadensis (Greene) Bayer share with A. neglecta a distinctive little flat scarious tip or “flag,” sometimes curled or sometimes involute (and then not always easy to distinguish from a merely subulate tip). The glabrous and bright green upper surfaces of the basal leaves are often quite striking compared to the relatively dull, gray, ± pubescent young leaves of the other subspecies. Subspecies neodioica (Greene) Bayer has rather short stolons, with all leaves nearly as large as the terminal rosette ones, and the basal leaves tend to have more distinct petioles as well as to be the most heavily pubescent above of all our subspecies. Thus, in this subspecies there are often dense mats of crowded rosettes of dull-looking leaves. Subspecies petaloidea (Fernald) Bayer tends to have elongate stolons bearing leaves along them distinctly smaller than their terminal rosette leaves. Cauline leaves of this subspecies apparently can rarely have the little “flag” tips that characterize subsp. canadensis. The basal leaves of subsp. petaloidea, unlike those of subsp. neodioica, tend to be obovate without distinct petioles. Both subsp. petaloidea and subsp. neodioica sometimes resemble A. parlinii in the possession of at least partly 3-nerved basal leaves, but they tend to shorter involucres (less than 7.5, or very rarely 8, mm) than in that species.
The distributions of subsp. petaloidea and subsp. neodioica are essentially throughout the range mapped for the whole complex; subsp. canadensis comes south only to Saginaw Co., thus barely meeting the latitude in Gratiot Co. for the northernmost clear-cut records of A. neglecta.