Wild Quinine and Sweet Everlasting

Wild Quinine, the white flowers in the lower right corner, has become one of my favorite natives. Parthenium integrifolium occurs throughout eastern US from Texas to New England in dry prairies.  South East natives used the leaves to treat burns, mashed into a poultice.  It was once used as a substitute for quinine to treat fever.  None of this has anything to do with why I added to to my garden.  I first encountered it at Seven Ponds Nature Center in their prairie.  I was struck by the handsome chalky white flowers on stiff stems.  The leaves are thick and leathery in a basal rosette.  The flowers start in June and continue through the summer. Mine have been blooming steadily.  I found my plants at a plant sale a couple springs ago held by Gladwin High School.  They advertised heirloom veggies and prairie plants.  I was thrilled to find both quinine and rattlesnake master. The flowers have a pleasant light medicinal smell.

Growing behind the quinine is Sweet Everlasting, Pseudognaphalium obtusifolium, an annual cousin to Pearly Everlasting.  If you like maple syrup, find room for this plant.  Some evenings the smell comes right in the windows.  This is also one of the host plants of the  painted lady butterflies.  It was used as a tobacco substitute; one common name is rabbit tobacco.  It was also used as a smudge to purify gifts.  Growing in the wild, among other meadow plants it would probably be dismissed as uninteresting.  In the garden, given ample room to expand, it forms pleasing masses of silvery foliage topped with small white flowers in late summer.  I just couldn't resist a plant that smells like pancakes with syrup.  As an annual, I am counting on it reseeding.  If it follows the example of other members of the aster family, I should have plenty to share next spring.