Achillea borealis, White or Boreal Yarrow
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Achillea borealis, White or Boreal Yarrow
Product Details
Bloom Season: Summer
Ecosystem: Dry Meadow
Height: 24"
Lifecycle: Perennial
Light : Sun
Moisture: Average, Moderately Dry, Dry
Native Range: Ontario
Spacing: 12"
In her book Plants Have So Much to Give us, All We Have to Do is Ask, Mary Sissip Geniusz writes about how, not all that many years ago, White Yarrow was widely listed as being an entirely introduced species to this continent, thought by many botanists to have arrived with early European settlers as a medicinal herb. She also writes about the long history of relationship between the Waabanoo, an Algonquin group from the east cost and Waabanoowashk (Yarrow) that pre-dates European settlement.
While the history of this species on this continent isn’t in wide dispute anymore, challenges remain for those of us who would like to include them in the spaces we tend.
European Achillea millefolium is now wide spread here, bears a very strong resemblance to the, now recognized as native, Achillea borealis, and the two species are suspected to freely hybridize.
While identification information for those of us who don’t have the tools to check chromosome numbers or analyze DNA is a bit sparse, there do seem to be some distinctions in traits, most obviously the size and the shape of the flower heads, which are smaller and more domed on the native species. I’ve included more on this in the photo descriptions of today’s post.
Because of the confusion I have held off offering this species, even though I think that they have a lot to offer and a lot of capacity to thrive in the damaged and disjointed ecosystems so common in urban and suburban spaces.
Until I was gathering Canada Anemone seeds this summer. While making my way to the large Anemone patch I’d been watching for seed maturity, I spotted several sturdy stems, rising around 18” high from masses of ferny foliage and topped by domes of off-white flowers. There was something different about this patch, when compared to the White Yarrow that fills most of my urban front lawn (spread from a patch planted by the previous homeowner). Their flowers were dome-ier, their ferny leaves fern-ier. I didn’t have my camera handy but I noted the spot for a return visit.
Life got busy and I didn’t get back until October. Happily, there were still seed heads standing and even a few flowers in late re-bloom. I took plenty of photos and gathered a pinch from each of the seed heads.
I winter sowed those seeds and, despite many of them germinating in the early thaw, before the -15c freeze in March, they have been thriving.
These heat and drought resistant plants tolerate mowing, foot traffic and road salt. They are considered to be a prime restoration species by the Xerces society because “Yarrow starts blooming in late spring and will keep going well into the summer as long as it has water.” and “Along with native pollinators, yarrow attracts parasitoid wasps, syrphid flies and lady beetles.”
Yarrow can be quite competitive with shorter species but they rely on their capacity to grow in challenging conditions to keep from being overwhelmed by taller ones. I wouldn’t expect them to play nice with Bluebells of Scotland or Prairie Smoke but I wouldn’t hesitate to pair them with other vigorous species like Wild Strawberry, Lance-leaved Self-Heal and, in dry soils, Poverty Oat Grass for a walkable, mowable groundcover.
In a dry meadow, or meadow garden, they would thrive alongside Pearly Everlasting, Thimbleweed, Silver Wormwood, Whorled Milkweed, Orange Butterfly Weed, Lance Leaved Tickseed, Common Sneezeweed, Wild Blue Flax, Spotted Beebalm, Hairy Mountain Mint, Black-Eyed-Susan, Little Bluestem, Early, Grey and Stiff-leaved Goldenrods and Smooth, Heath, New England, and Sky Blue Asters.
Notes on the identification traits and resources I made use of:
Their distinctly domed flower and seed heads were what first caught my eye because last winter someone sent me a thesis excerpt on the topic of Yarrow identification which stated:
“Native plant varieties can be distinguished from non-native plant varieties based on the flower head. For native varieties the width of the flower head is 2 to 10cm wide and has a rounded top, compared to introduced varieties that are 6 to 30cm wide and have a flattened top. However in many areas non-natives and native varieties have hybridized. From page 158 of this document
It included a reference that I followed back to this article from the Canadian Journal of Plant Science, to a table on page 4 that compares the traits of the European and the native species.
Their very ferny leaves also caught my eye because of this info from the bottom of the Go Botany page on Achillea: Collections from New England appear to largely represent our native subspecies. Introduced material of the Old World appear to be confined to garden settings. It is distinguished by its leaf blades with broader segments ± oriented in the same plane (vs. narrow segments oriented in more than 1 plane in [the native sub species]).
-Note that Achillea lanulosa is now considered to be Achillea borealis var. borealis, which also goes by the common name of Boreal Yarrow
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