When the hepatica, arbutus, saxifrage, and adder's tongue are running for first place among the earliest spring flowers, another modest little competitor joins the race - the DWARF EVERLASTING (Antennaria plantaginifolia), also known as PLANTAIN-LEAVED, MOUSE-EAR, SPRING or EARLY EVERLASTING, WHITE PLANTAIN, PUSSY-TOES and LADIES' TOBACCO. From March to June, in different parts of its wide range, rocky fields, hillsides, and dry, open woods are whitened with broad patches of it, formed by runners; the fertile plants from six to eighteen inches high; the male plants, in distinct patches, smaller throughout. At the base the tufted leaves, which are green on the upper side, but silvery beneath, often woolly when young, are broadly oval or spatulate, the upper leaves oblong to lance-shaped, seated on the woolly stem. Charming little rosettes remain all winter, ready to send up the first flowers displayed by the vast host of composites. Several little heads of fertile florets, resembling tufts of silvery-white silk, are set in pale-greenish cups in a broad cluster at the top of the stem; the staminate florets in whiter cups with more rounded scales. Small bees, chiefly those of the Andrena and Halictus tribe, and many flies, attend to transferring pollen. Our friend, the hunter's butterfly, also hovers near. Range from Labrador to the Gulf of Mexico, westward to Nebraska. YARROW; MILFOIL; OLD MAN'S PEPPER; NOSEBLEED (Achillea Millefolium) Thistle family Flower-heads - Grayish-white, rarely pinkish, in a hard, close, flat-topped, compound cluster. Ray florets 4 to 6, pistillate, fertile; disk florets yellow, afterward brown, perfect, fertile. Stem: Erect, from horizontal rootstalk, 1 to 2 ft. high, leafy, sometimes hairy. Leaves: Very finely dissected (Millefolium = thousand leaf), narrowly oblong in outline. Preferred Habitat - Waste land, dry fields, banks, roadsides. Flowering Season - June-November. Distribution - Naturalized from Europe and Asia throughout North America. Everywhere this commonest of common weeds confronts us; the compact, dusty-looking clusters appearing not by waysides only, around the world, but in the mythology, folklore, medicine, and literature of many peoples. Chiron, the centaur, who taught its virtues to Achilles that he might make an ointment to heal his Myrmidons wounded in the siege of Troy, named the plant for this favorite pupil, giving his own to the beautiful blue corn-flower (Centaurea Cyanus). As a love-charm; as an herb-tea brewed by crones to cure divers ailments, from loss of hair to the ague; as an inducement to nosebleed for the relief of congestive headache; as an ingredient of an especially intoxicating beer made by the Swedes, it is mentioned in old books. Nowadays we are satisfied merely to admire the feathery masses of lace-like foliage formed by young plants, to whiff the wholesome, nutty, autumnal odor of its flowers, or to wonder at the marvelous scheme it employs to overrun the earth.