Educational information, not medical advice — ask your doctor or midwife.
Antennaria howellii is a small North American wild plant, sometimes listed among the medicinal plants of the continent. It is best known as Howell's pussytoes. The name comes from the soft, furry flower heads, which look a bit like a cat's paw.
It belongs to the daisy family (Asteraceae), the same group as ragweed and chamomile. It forms low mats of grey-green leaves in dry, open ground. Short stalks carry the pale flower clusters in spring and early summer.
Here is the honest verdict on the evidence. No human trials have tested this plant for any health use. Records of how it was used are thin, and traditional use is not proof that a plant works or that it is safe.
This page exists because the name turns up in plant lists and seed catalogues. It is not here because something has been shown to work. If you are weighing it up, treat it as an unknown rather than a mild option.
No one has shown how this plant acts in the body, because the work has not been done.
Plants in the daisy family often contain tannins and flavonoids. In test tubes, tannins bind proteins and can tighten surface tissue. That is a lab observation about a class of compounds, not a proven effect of this plant in people.
Some older folk ideas treated pussytoes as a drying, soothing herb for coughs and loose bowels. That idea was based on taste and feel, not on measurements. No study has tested it.
If a source tells you that Antennaria howellii fights germs, calms swelling or helps the lungs, ask which study. For this species, there is almost certainly none.
You are unlikely to find this plant on a shop shelf. It is not a standard commercial herb.
Where it is used at all, it shows up as:
- Dried leaves and flower heads, picked by hand. - A simple water infusion (tea) made from the dried plant. - A crushed-leaf poultice laid on the skin in older folk practice.
There are no standard extracts, no tinctures with known strength, and no capsules with a tested content. Garden suppliers sell the plant and seed for ground cover, not as a remedy.
Antennaria species appear in European and North American folk herb lore. The European catsfoot, Antennaria dioica, was the one most often written about. Old herbals suggested it for coughs and for loose bowels.
In North America, some Indigenous groups were recorded using local pussytoes species. Reported uses included washes and poultices for the skin, and teas taken after childbirth. These records are patchy and vary from group to group.
For Antennaria howellii itself, named use is very hard to trace. It is mostly carried along in lists of "medicinal plants of North America" rather than described in its own right. None of this history tells you what the plant does in a body today.
Stop and get emergency help if you have swelling of the lips, tongue or throat, a spreading rash, or trouble breathing. These can be signs of a severe allergic reaction.
Stop and see your doctor if you get stomach pain, vomiting, or yellow skin or eyes.
See a doctor rather than treating yourself if a cough lasts over three weeks, if diarrhoea lasts more than two days, or if you have a fever with either. Also see a doctor if a skin sore spreads, weeps or does not heal.
Antennaria howellii is not approved as a medicine in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom or the European Union. In the United States it could in theory be sold as a dietary supplement, but it is not a normal trade herb. It is mainly sold as a garden plant or as seed.
Evidence grades and traditional-use labels are explained in our methodology. Nothing here is medical advice.
What it is typically used for, usual dose, cautions, and the study behind it where real trial data exists.
One email with the summary. We'll also send a short weekly evidence update — unsubscribe any time.
