Artemisia campestris
Artemisia nova
beach wormwood, field sagewort, field wormwood, northern wormwood, Pacific sagewort, sand wormwood
black sage, black sagebrush
usually 1–5, turning reddish brown, (often ribbed) tomentose or glabrous.
brown, glabrescent (vegetative of approximately equal heights, giving plants a ‘hedged’ appearance; bark dark gray, exfoliating with age).
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.
persistent, usually bright green to dark green, sometimes gray-green;
blades cuneate, 3-lobed (lobes to 1/3 blade lengths, 0.5–2 × 0.2–1 cm, rounded), faces sparsely hairy, gland-dotted.
broadly turbinate, 2.5–3(–5) × 2–3.5(–7) mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 2 mm.
pistillate 5–20; functionally staminate 12–30;
corollas pale yellow, sparsely hairy or glabrous.
2–6;
corollas 2–3 mm, glabrous (style branches scarcely exsert).
(margins scarious) glabrous or villous-tomentose.
(straw-colored or light green) ovate to elliptic (margins hyaline, shiny-resinous), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
(pedunculate) in (mostly leafless) paniculiform arrays.
in paniculiform arrays 4–10 × 0.5–3 cm (branches ± erect; peduncles slender).
oblong-lanceoloid, somewhat compressed, 0.8–1 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.
(ribbed) 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
= 18, 36.
Artemisia campestris
Artemisia nova
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.)
Artemisia nova is the common low-growing dark-green (“black”) sagebrush of desert valleys or south-southwest-facing slopes. It is prized by sheep ranchers as forage in areas where little else is available for grazing. It is conspicuous by its low growth habit, dark green foliage, and, in late season, by its pale orange to light brown flowering branches that rise beyond the vegetative growth. Often confused in herbarium collections with A. arbuscula, A. nova is easily distinguished by the entire leaves of the flowering stems, pedunculate heads, narrowly turbinate involucres, and often straw-colored, glabrous or sparsely hairy phyllaries.
(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, 
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KS Wildflowers, 
MI Flora, 
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WildflowerSearch
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