Artemisia campestris
Artemisia stelleriana
beach wormwood, field sagewort, field wormwood, northern wormwood, Pacific sagewort, sand wormwood
armoise de Steller, beach wormwood, dusty miller, oldwoman, Steller's wormwood
usually 1–5, turning reddish brown, (often ribbed) tomentose or glabrous.
1–3, erect or ascending, white, simple (stout), densely tomentose to floccose.
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 (petiolate), silver-gray;
blades oblanceolate, (proximalmost) 3–10 × 1–5 cm, pinnatifid (lobes relatively broad, rounded; distal leaves, on flowering stems, smaller), faces densely tomentose.
broadly turbinate, 2.5–3(–5) × 2–3.5(–7) mm.
broadly campanulate, 5–8 × 6–7 mm.
pistillate 5–20; functionally staminate 12–30;
corollas pale yellow, sparsely hairy or glabrous.
pistillate 12–16;
bisexual 25–30;
corollas yellow (narrow or tubular), 3.2–4 mm (unusually large), glabrous or sparsely hairy (style branches prominent, erect, blunt).
(margins scarious) glabrous or villous-tomentose.
broadly lanceolate, tomentose.
(pedunculate) in (mostly leafless) paniculiform arrays.
(erect or spreading, peduncles 0 or to 3 mm) in dense, paniculiform, racemiform, or spiciform arrays 8–20 × 2–4 cm.
oblong-lanceoloid, somewhat compressed, 0.8–1 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.
(dark brown) narrowly oblong-linear (slightly flattened, smooth), 3–4 mm, glabrous.
= 18.
Artemisia campestris
Artemisia stelleriana
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 stelleriana is apparently native along the western tip of the Aleutian islands (D. F. Murray, pers. comm.). It is an attractive ornamental and, in parts of its range in the flora area, it appears to have escaped from cultivation and is naturalized in beach dunes and other sandy habitats.
(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
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
LA Plants
MD Biodiversity
