It is widely cultivated as an ornamental plant for its white, felt-like tomentose leaves; in horticultural use, it is also sometimes called dusty miller, a name shared with several other plants that also have silvery tomentose leaves, including Centaurea cineraria and Silene coronaria.

Silver Ragwort is a very white-wooly, heat and drought tolerant evergreen subshrub growing to 0.5–1 m (1.6–3.3 ft) tall.

The stems are stiff and woody at the base, densely branched, and covered in long, matted grey-white to white hairs.

[4][5][6] Jacobaea maritima is native to the western and central Mediterranean region, in northwest Africa (Morocco, northern Algeria, Tunisia), southern Europe (Spain, Gibraltar, southern France including Corsica, Italy including Sardinia and Sicily, Malta, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia, and Greece), and the far west of Asia (Turkey).

[13] The cultivar 'Silver Dust' has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.