Artemisia dracunculus
Artemisia nova
dragon herb, dragon sagewort, dragon wormwood, tarragon, wild tarragon
black sage, black sagebrush
relatively numerous, erect, green to brown or reddish brown, somewhat woody, glabrous.
brown, glabrescent (vegetative of approximately equal heights, giving plants a ‘hedged’ appearance; bark dark gray, exfoliating with age).
proximal blades bright green and glabrous or gray-green and sparsely hairy, 5–8 cm;
cauline blades bright green (gray-green in desert forms), linear, lanceolate, or oblong, 1–7 × 0.1–0.5(–0.9) cm, mostly entire, sometimes irregularly lobed, acute, usually glabrous, sometimes glabrescent (deserts).
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.
globose, 2–3 × 2–3.5(–6) mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 2 mm.
pistillate 6–25; functionally staminate 8–20;
corollas pale yellow, 1.8–2 mm, eglandular or sparsely glandular.
2–6;
corollas 2–3 mm, glabrous (style branches scarcely exsert).
(light brown, broadly lanceolate, membranous): margins broadly hyaline, glabrous.
(straw-colored or light green) ovate to elliptic (margins hyaline, shiny-resinous), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
in terminal or lateral, leafy, paniculiform arrays 15–45 × 6–30 cm; appearing ball-like on slender, sometimes nodding peduncles.
in paniculiform arrays 4–10 × 0.5–3 cm (branches ± erect; peduncles slender).
oblong, 0.5–0.8 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.
(ribbed) 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
= 18.
= 18, 36.
Artemisia dracunculus
Artemisia nova
Artemisia dracunculus is widely cultivated as a culinary herb and may be introduced in parts of its range. It is easily cultivated from rootstocks, and while establishment from seeds is rare, seedlings can be found with amenable environmental conditions. Because of its popularity as an herb, it may suffer from overcollecting. Its scarcity in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois (J. T. Kartesz and C. A. Meacham 1999) may have been caused by overly enthusiastic collecting as well as habitat loss.
(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.)
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