Artemisia campestris
Artemisia alaskana
beach wormwood, field sagewort, field wormwood, northern wormwood, Pacific sagewort, sand wormwood
Alaska wormwood, alaskan sagebrush, Siberian wormwood
usually 1–5, turning reddish brown, (often ribbed) tomentose or glabrous.
1–10, erect, gray-green, simple (suffrutescent from woody offsets), densely hairy to glabrescent.
persistent or deciduous, mostly basal;
basal blades 4–12 cm;
cauline gradually reduced, 2–4 × 0.5–1.5 cm, 2–3-pinnately lobed, lobes linear to narrowly oblong, apices acute, faces densely to sparsely white-pubescent.
basal and cauline, mostly gray-green;
blades obovate, 1.5–5 × 0.5–1.5 cm, 3-lobed to 2-ternately lobed (lobes 0.5–3 mm wide, margins flat; cauline leaves smaller, sometimes entire), faces tomentose.
broadly turbinate, 2.5–3(–5) × 2–3.5(–7) mm.
broadly campanulate, 3.5–5 × 6–9 mm.
pistillate 5–20; functionally staminate 12–30;
corollas pale yellow, sparsely hairy or glabrous.
pistillate 8–10;
bisexual 20–45;
corollas yellow, 2–2.5 mm, glabrous or glandular.
(margins scarious) glabrous or villous-tomentose.
ovate (margins brownish or hyaline), tomentose.
(pedunculate) in (mostly leafless) paniculiform arrays.
(peduncles 0 or to 30 mm) in (leafy) paniculiform to racemiform arrays 12–25 × 1–4.5 cm.
oblong-lanceoloid, somewhat compressed, 0.8–1 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.
ellipsoid (flattened), 1–1.5 mm, glabrous.
= 18.
Artemisia campestris
Artemisia alaskana
Subspecies ca. 7 (3 in the flora).
Artemisia campestris varies; each morphologic form grades into another. The present circumscription is conservative in that only three subspecies are recognized; the subspecies usually can be separated geographically as well as morphologically. Populations in western North America consist primarily of subsp. pacifica; east of the continental divide, plants are assigned to subsp. canadensis in northern latitudes and to subsp. caudata in southern latitudes.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
As circumscribed here, Artemisia alaskana is known from northwestern North America. The type specimen of A. alaskana is atypical, with longer peduncles and narrower leaf lobes than are found in most populations.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Perennials; stems 2–5; basal rosettes persistent | subsp. pacifica |
1. Biennials; stems 1(–3); basal rosettes not persistent (withering before flowering) | → 2 |
2. Involucres globose, 3–4 × 3.5–5 mm; n of 50°, primarily Canada | subsp. canadensis |
2. Involucres turbinate, 2–3 × 2–3 mm; s of 50°, e from Rocky Mountains to coastal North America | subsp. caudata |
- Local floras:
BC, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites:
CalFlora, CalPhotos, 
Flora NW, 
Go Botany, 
IL Wildflowers, 
KS Wildflowers, 
MI Flora, 
MN Wildflowers, 
MO Plants, 
PNW Herbaria 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
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