Enter your ZIP to see whether this is legal to plant in your state, and whether it survives your winter.
Rosy pussytoes is rated fire resistant, with Idaho explicitly linking its groundcover guidance to regular maintenance.
Idaho's database scores Antennaria rosea eight and associates that score with a suggested minimum distance of thirty feet from the home. Its groundcover section says pruning flower stalks and cutting plants back as needed improves fire resistance.
Oregon State profiles rosy pussytoes as a cold-hardy, self-seeding groundcover suited to low-water landscaping. New Mexico's Firewise list gives the same species moderate water needs and sun to partial shade. Its elevation table marks the four-thousand-foot column not recommended and the listed elevations from five thousand through nine thousand feet and above as suitable. The regional advice therefore should travel with its source, especially when choosing a site.
Fremont County also includes rosy pussytoes among its Firewise ground covers, with plant choice, spacing and maintenance qualifying the list. These recommendations support Antennaria rosea as a fire-resistant option while making the work concrete: match the species, follow the relevant regional growing conditions, and prune the flower stalks and spent growth that Idaho identifies. The suggested thirty-foot separation remains Idaho's guidance for its scored plant.
Form
groundcover
Rated in
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico +2
On this lot
1. Fire evidence and conditions
Fire evidence
Fire-resistant — location does not change the cited classification.
British Columbia; Colorado / Rocky Mountain Front Range; Fremont County, Wyoming; New Mexico; Oregon (Willamette Valley); southern Idaho / Intermountain
Maintenance
Typed publication scope: 5 scopes across 5 cited fire sources
Colorado State University Extension and the Colorado State Forest Service publish Fact Sheet 6.305 for Colorado's WUI and varied ecosystems. FireApproved exposes all 114 exact source owners at Colorado publication scope while retaining score, elevation, water, and Idaho-carrier lineage. Publication scope is not suitability for every Colorado site or zone.
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.
Southern Idaho (ID footprint); partial normalized coverage · 2013-11-08
The official database labels itself "For Southern Idaho" and describes Idaho residents at the urban-rangeland interface. FireApproved publishes 419 existing plant owners that cite its scored rows. This bounded Southern Idaho scope is regional context, not statewide coverage or a conclusion that the score transfers unchanged to every Idaho site.
New Mexico Forestry Division publishes this as its FireWise Plant List for New Mexico. FireApproved accounts for all 140 printed rows and publishes 95 exact same-rank owners already represented in the directory; 29 exact taxa without an existing record, 14 unresolved spellings or higher-rank matches, one compound taxon cell, and one species row whose only apparent owner has an infraspecific printed identity remain held. Every published row retains the source's Y, N, ?, or blank elevation cells. Publication scope does not erase those elevation limits or establish suitability for every New Mexico site.
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, ID, MI, MN, MT, ND, NE, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY.
Native range
Current cited native range in AK, AZ, CA, CO, ID, ME, MI, MN, MT, ND, NM, NV, OR, SD, UT, WA, WY.
Introduced / established
USDA hardiness
Documented range 3–8.
3. Legal, ecological, and broader status
Legal-list status
Seed-list status
Reported invasive here
Broader regional context
Federal context
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.
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.
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.
Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database: plantable at 30' from home [Idaho minimum planting distance] (with its recommendation)
FireSmart BC Plant Program: suitable for HIZ intermediate zone (10-30 m) [FireSmart BC Home Ignition Zone] (with its recommendation)
Fire-resistant Landscape Plants for the Willamette Valley: Rosy Pussytoes profile (PDF page 21) [osu-em-9103-profile] (with its recommendation)
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants: suitable for defensible-space zones 1-2 (score 8+) [CSU defensible-space zone] (with its recommendation)
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico: PDF page 5, Flowers and Ground Covers, p5-r06 [nm-emnrd-firewise-table-row] (with its recommendation)
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.
“fire-resistant plants that thrive in Willamette Valley growing conditions”
The groundcovers profile lists Antennaria rosea as Rosy Pussytoes. The profile prints USDA Hardiness Zone: 3–8.
Ignition-Resistant Landscape Plants (Fact Sheet 6.305) — Colorado State University Extension / Colorado State Forest Service (Wildfire Mitigation Series) · 2025 · original sourcePrimary evidenceField programlineage: idaho-tree resolves to Fire Resistance of Plants Master Database
“ignitability score 8 of 10”
· score 8 (idaho-0-10)
CSU 6.305 table lists Antennaria rosea (rosy pussytoes) with the preserved ignitability score.
“Fremont County Firewise Plant List — Antennaria rose — Rosy Pussytoes”
Listed in the source's Ground Covers section; the page describes its listed Firewise plants as generally low-growing, low-debris, and relatively moist.
FireWise Plant List for New Mexico — New Mexico Energy, Minerals and Natural Resources Department, Forestry Division · 2003 Forestry Division PDF · original sourceCorroborationCompilationlineage: csu-nmsu-firewise
“FireWise Plant List for New Mexico”
Listed as Antennaria rosea (Pink pussytoes) in Flowers and Ground Covers. Printed elevation cells: 4,000 ft=N, 5,000 ft=Y, 6,000 ft=Y, 7,000 ft=Y, 8,000 ft=Y, 9,000+ ft=Y. Water need: M; sun/shade: S/PS; mature height: <.5’; approximate bloom: Jun.
