Botanical atlas

Alpine Cudweed

Gnaphalium supinum

Alpine cudweed is a plant known far better to mountaineers and botanists than to herbalists. It grows in some of the harshest ground in Europe, tucked into gravel and rock crevices near mountain summits, and for most of its recorded history it has simply been noted, admired, and left alone rather than gathered. Its larger, lowland cousin, marsh cudweed, carries a real folk history as a gargle and wash in old European herbal tradition, but that record does not extend with any confidence to this small alpine species. What Gnaphalium supinum has instead earned is a quiet reputation among hillwalkers as one of the toughest little flowering plants they will ever step over, a woolly gray-green survivor holding its ground where almost nothing else can.

Safety.

Not documented as toxic, but it has no real history of food or medicinal use, so it isn't eaten or brewed; it also grows in fragile alpine turf that is often protected from picking.