PlantKey Open ecological atlas
Planner
Home / Browse / Gnaphalium / Many Stem Cudweed
iNaturalist — CC, credited & licensed per image
Asteraceae family

Many Stem Cudweed Gnaphalium polycaulon

Native

Many Stem Cudweed is an annual wildflower native to Puerto Rico.

More about this plant

Gnaphalium polycaulon, the many stem cudweed, is a plant species in the family Asteraceae. It is widespread across much of Mesoamerica, South America, and the West Indies, and naturalized in parts of Asia and Africa. Wikipedia →

Growing & care

USDA PLANTS · TRY
Size & form
Sources · Size & form
USDA PLANTS — Lifespan
Lifespan
Annual
In the garden
Herb layer — Sits in the herb of a layered food forest or polyculture.Open guide →
derived roles
Species characteristics from USDA PLANTS (public domain) + TRY (CC BY) — general guidance, not a guarantee for your exact site. Deer "browsing" is documented palatability, not a deer-proof claim.

Wildlife & pollinators

How pollinator value is scored →
❧ Caterpillar hosts ~5 caterpillar species

Gnaphalium supports ~5 caterpillar species.

Native butterfly & moth caterpillars are the base of the terrestrial food web — most songbirds rear their young almost entirely on them. As a host for native Lepidoptera this is a modest genus for introduced plants — native genera typically support far more.

Recorded feeding on Gnaphalium in North America, including:

Argyrotaenia franciscana · Orange Tortrix Chionodes fondella · twirler moth Clepsis fucana · leafroller moth Cremastobombycia grindeliella · leaf-blotch miner moth Eublemma minima · Everlasting Bud Moth Exaeretia canella · concealer moth
+ 8 more species →
Oidaematophorus phoebus · plume moth Patagonia peregrina · snout moth Phaneta artemisiana · leafroller moth Platyptilia williamsii · plume moth Rifseria fuscotaeniella · twirler moth Sparganothis senecionana · leafroller moth Tebenna gnaphaliella · Everlasting Tebenna Moth Trichordestra legitima · Striped Garden Caterpillar Moth
Keystone count (genus-level) from Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use records. Named species (a documented Nearctic sample, not exhaustive) from NHM HOSTS (CC0).
Species thumbnails re-hosted from iNaturalist — Creative Commons, credited per image (hover for credit). Click any species to see it on iNaturalist. Not exhaustive; many taxa have no openly-licensed photo yet.
Sources for this entry (12) Open & cited
[01] Scientific name & family — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[02] Growth habit & duration — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[03] Native status & distribution — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503)
[04] Common name — USDA PLANTS (via GBIF)
[05] Invasive / introduced status — USDA PLANTS (DwCA, Zenodo 17903503) — native status
[06] Wetland indicator — USACE National Wetland Plant List (2022)
[08] Description — Wikipedia (CC BY-SA)
[09] Ecological value — Warren II 2026 (CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[11] Caterpillar host count — Warren II 2026 (Dryad, CC0) · Tallamy host-use counts
[12] Caterpillar species — NHM HOSTS (CC0)
Spot an error or have a better photo? Every field links to its source, and the whole dataset is open.
Cite this page Open data, please attribute

PlantKey’s data is open under CC BY-SA 4.0 — free to reuse and adapt, with attribution and the same licence. Photos keep their own per-image licence + credit (see Sources above).

Citation

Loading…

BibTeX 
Loading…