Siberian edelweiss (Leontopodium palibinianum)

Features and Characteristics

Leontopodium palibinianum, commonly known as edelweiss or palibin’s edelweiss, is a clumping, loosely-tufted, herbaceous perennial wildflower of the aster family that is native to rocky, limestone, alpine areas of northeastern Asia (Siberia and northern China). Each plant features narrow, entire, lanceolate to linear-lanceolate, gray-tomentose basal leaves from which rises a woolly white stem to 9-15” tall topped in summer with small, discoid flower heads consisting only of white (sometimes tinged with pale yellow) disk florets which are crowded into dense terminal cymes subtended by a conspicuous, star-shaped arrangement of showy, woolly, leaf-like bracts which are densely white-hairy on the upper surface but greenish beneath.

Genus name comes from Greek leon meaning lion and podion meaning foot. Flowers and bract-like leaves purportedly resemble a lion’s paw.

Common name comes from German edel meaning noble and weiss meaning white.

The related species Leontopodium alpinum is the European edelweiss referred to in the song ‘Edelweiss’ composed by Rodgers and Hammerstein for The Sound of Music.