Artemisia absinthium
Artemisia rigida
absinth wormwood, absinthe, absinthe wormwood, absinthium, armoise absinthe, common wormwood, green ginger, oldman, oldman wormwood, wormwood
scabland sagebrush, stiff sagebrush
gray-green (sometimes woody proximally), densely canescent to glabrescent (hairs appressed).
gray (coarse, brittle), hairy (bark gray, exfoliating).
deciduous, gray-green;
blades broadly ovate, 3–8 × 1–4 cm, mostly pinnately lobed (basal 2–3-pinnatifid, lobes obovate), faces densely canescent.
deciduous, silver-gray (rigid);
blades broadly spatulate, 1.5–4 × 0.5–0.7 cm (bases narrow), 3-lobed (lobes 1/2+ blade lengths, ca. 1 mm wide), faces densely hairy.
broadly ovoid, 2–3 × 3–5 mm.
narrowly campanulate, 4–5 × 2.5–3.5 mm.
pistillate 9–20;
bisexual 30–50;
corollas 1–2 mm, glandular.
4–8;
corollas yellowish red to red, 2–2.8 mm (style branches oblong, truncate, exsert).
gray-green, densely sericeous.
elliptic (acute to obtuse), densely canescent.
(nodding) in open (diffusely branched), paniculiform arrays 10–20(–35) × (2–)10–13(–15) cm.
borne singly or (in glomerules) in (densely leafy) spiciform or paniculiform arrays 2–20 × 2 cm.
(± cylindric, slightly curved, obscurely nerved), ± 0.5 mm, glabrous (shiny).
(4–5-ribbed) 1–1.5 mm, glabrous.
= 18.
= 18, 36.
Artemisia absinthium
Artemisia rigida
Artemisia absinthium provides the flavoring as well as the psychoactive ingredient for absinthe liquor, a beverage that is illegal in some markets. Known as a powerful neurotoxin, absinthe in large quantities is addictive as well as deadly. The species is popular in the horticultural trade. Prized by gardeners for its gracefully scalloped leaves and gray-green foliage, it creates an attractive and winter-hardy flower border.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Artemisia rigida is an important successional species following fires because the plants form new shoots from the underground caudices. This characteristic aligns the species with other ‘sprouters’ in the subgenus, namely A. cana, A. tripartita, and A. arbuscula.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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PNW Herbaria, Turner Photog. 
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