Dioecious. Plants 6.5-20(-25) cm. Stolons 2.5-7.5 cm (mostly ascending when young). Basal leaves (petiolate) 3-5(-7)-nerved, obovate to suborbiculate, 35-75 × 15-35 mm, tips minutely mucronate, abaxially tomentose, adaxially green-glabrescent to gray-pubescent. Cauline leaves linear, 6.5-35 mm, distal flagged. Heads 4-17(-30) in tight corymbiform arrays. Involucres: staminate 5-7(-8) mm; pistillate 5-7 mm. Phyllaries distally white. Corollas: staminate 2-3.5 mm; pistillate 3-4 mm. Cypselae 0.5-1.6 mm, slightly papillate; pappi: staminate 2.5-4 mm; pistillate 3.5-5.5 mm. 2n = 28. Flowering mid-late spring. Dry, open, deciduous woodlands, tops of banks, ridges, and bluffs, sandstone formations, slopes in openings in woodlands; 0-1500 m; Man., N.B., N.S., Que.; Ala., Ark., Conn., Del., Fla., Ga., Ill., Ind., Iowa, Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Minn., Miss., Mo., N.H., N.J., N.Y., N.C., Okla., Pa., R.I., S.C., Tenn., Vt., Va., W.Va., Wis. Antennaria plantaginifolia is a diploid progenitor of the A. parlinii complex and is similar to that species except for smaller heads and adaxially gray-pubescent basal leaves (R. J. Bayer and G. L. Stebbins 1982; Bayer 1985b; Bayer and D. J. Crawford 1986). It is a diploid ancestor of the A. howellii complex. It is found in the Appalachian region; disjunct populations occur in the driftless area of Wisconsin and Minnesota (Bayer and Stebbins).