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United States / Grow / western pearly everlasting

western pearly everlasting (Anaphalis margaritacea)
Photo: (c) Tom Norton, some rights reserved (CC BY) (CC BY), via iNaturalist. Species-typical, not necessarily this cultivar.

western pearly everlasting

Anaphalis margaritacea · Asteraceae · also called Pearly Everlasting · Wikipedia

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Is this one for your yard?

Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.

Western pearly everlasting is rated fire resistant, though the supporting primary evidence is limited.

Three organizations recommend it. FireSmart BC calls it an approved fire-resistant plant but also flags it as needing more research. Oregon State University Extension includes it among fire-resistant plants suited to Willamette Valley growing conditions, while Fremont County Firewise places it among its Firewise ground covers. The Wyoming list describes its selections generally as low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist, but those qualities are not findings specific to western pearly everlasting.

A laboratory measurement adds context without proving the landscape verdict. Predried dead stems produced a calorific value of 4,569.36 kilocalories per kilogram in a calorimeter. That figure describes the energy the material can release once burned. It does not establish how readily a living plant ignites, how flames move through it, or how it behaves beside a building.

Western pearly everlasting is a perennial in the aster family, reaches about three feet at maturity, and needs moderate water. It is native across broad parts of North America and hardy to USDA zone 2b. The practical reading is favorable but qualified: several regional programs treat it as a fire-resistant landscaping choice, while FireSmart BC’s research flag and the narrow stem test leave room for further study.

Form
perennial
Mature height
~3 ft
Water need
moderate
Rated in
British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Global; Oregon (Willamette Valley)
On this lot

1. Fire evidence and conditions

Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
Placement evidence
1 source placement record; source schemes remain separate.
Evidence regions
British Columbia; Fremont County, Wyoming; Global; Oregon (Willamette Valley)
Typed publication scope: 2 scopes across 2 cited fire sources
  • Fremont County Firewise Plant List · Official scoped edition
    • Fremont County (WY footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2011-02-25

      The source identifies itself as the Fremont County Firewise Plant List. FireApproved publishes its 92 exact source owners as Fremont County regional context. No methodology, current county endorsement, statewide Wyoming scope, or site-specific suitability is inferred.

  • Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley (EM 9103) · Official scoped edition
    • Willamette Valley (OR footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2015-02-01

      OSU Extension says EM 9103 highlights fire-resistant plants that thrive under Willamette Valley growing conditions. FireApproved publishes 172 exact owners only as valley context. The guide shares the PNW 590 lineage and is not a second independent vote or statewide site clearance.

2. Why this plant is relevant here

State distribution
Documented in AK, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, KS, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MO, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, AR, AZ, CA, CO, CT, DE, IA, ID, IL, IN, KY, MA, MD, ME, MI, MN, MT, NC, NE, NH, NJ, NM, NV, NY, OH, OR, PA, RI, SD, TN, TX, UT, VA, VT, WA, WI, WV, WY.
USDA hardiness
2 applicable cited hardiness statements overlap but have different boundaries; compare each complete source row.

3. Legal, ecological, and broader status

How to read this page

The status above is computed from the cited rows below: independent recommendations can support a fire-resistant result, an avoid row can produce keep-away, and disagreement stays visible as conflict. Placement notes preserve each source’s own scheme rather than translating unlike rules into one scale. This is evidence about a plant, not permission to plant it in every part of the defensible space; Zone 0 remains noncombustible.

Native and introduced range evidence

These are exact U.S. botanical-area records from the cited range source. Native and introduced describe biogeographic relationship, not fire performance or planting approval. Doubtful and extinct rows stay visible but do not count as current presence.

Current native

39

exact source areas

Current introduced

0

exact source areas

Qualified

0

doubtful or extinct source rows

39 native source areas · World Checklist of Vascular Plants, version 16 v16, as of 2026-06-04
  • Alaska (AK)
  • Arkansas (AR)
  • Arizona (AZ)
  • California (CA)
  • Colorado (CO)
  • Connecticut (CT)
  • Delaware (DE)
  • Iowa (IA)
  • Idaho (ID)
  • Illinois (IL)
  • Indiana (IN)
  • Kentucky (KY)
  • Massachusetts (MA)
  • Maryland (MD)
  • Maine (ME)
  • Michigan (MI)
  • Minnesota (MN)
  • Montana (MT)
  • North Carolina (NC)
  • Nebraska (NE)
  • New Hampshire (NH)
  • New Jersey (NJ)
  • New Mexico (NM)
  • Nevada (NV)
  • New York (NY)
  • Ohio (OH)
  • Oregon (OR)
  • Pennsylvania (PA)
  • Rhode I. (RI)
  • South Dakota (SD)
  • Tennessee (TN)
  • Texas (TX)
  • Utah (UT)
  • Virginia (VA)
  • Vermont (VT)
  • Washington (WA)
  • Wisconsin (WI)
  • West Virginia (WV)
  • Wyoming (WY)

The lossless worldwide derivative is retained once in the research corpus; object pages repeat only exact U.S. areas needed by the local lens. The JSON twin carries the same page assertions.

Plant hardiness evidence

These values describe the plant source. Your ZIP zone comes from the separate 2023 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map. Whole-zone values stay whole-zone, and a single unresolved value is not treated as a tolerance range. Different source boundaries stay separate: overlapping statements are compared independently, while only ranges with no shared zone are called a conflict.

Where its sources say to plant it

Placement rules below use each source's own distances or named zones, tied to its rating. They are not interchangeable with the directory's current Zone 0 guidance.

The evidence

Grouped by what each source concluded. Primary evidence rated the plant itself (a lab, field program, or original curation); corroboration compiled or republished another source's rating and resolves to its root lineage.

Recommends (3)

Corroboration (2 rows from 2 sources)

  • FireSmart BC Plant Program — fire-resistant plant chart — FireSmart BC · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: firesmart-bc-plant-database

    “FireSmart-approved fire-resistant plant”

    Flagged by FireSmart BC as needing more research.

  • Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Fremont County Firewise · web page (server last-modified 2011-02-25) · original source Corroboration Compilation lineage: unknown

    “Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Anaphalis margaritacea — Pearly Everlasting”

    Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.

Listed without a rating (2)
Corroboration (2 rows from 1 source)

  • FLAMITS: FLAMmability plant traiTS database — Dryad / Global Ecology and Biogeography · Dryad version 9 · original source Corroboration Trait database lineage: meta-aggregator

    2 cited rows from this source; its identity, lineage and tier are stated once.

    • Primary study Hogenbirk1995: Hogenbirk, J.C., & Sarrazin-Delay, C.L. (1995). Using fuel characteristics to estimate plant ignitability for fire hazard reduction. Water Air Soil Pollut, 82, 161–170.

      Shared row context: Combustibility measurement; plant part stems; predrying yes; device calorimeter; site Hogenbirk1995-1; sampling june.

      • “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4569.36”

        FLAMITS record 4983; fuel dead.

      • “calorific value (kcal/kg): 4363.95”

        FLAMITS record 4992; fuel live.

Last verified 2026-08-23. JSON (CC BY 4.0)

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Anaphalis margaritacea (Pearly Everlasting). FireApproved. https://fireapproved.com/plants/anaphalis-margaritacea/. Last verified 2026-08-23.