Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Artemisia dracunculus

Artemisia pattersonii

dragon herb, dragon sagewort, dragon wormwood, tarragon, wild tarragon

Patterson sagewort, Patterson's wormwood
Habit Perennials or subshrubs, 50–120(–150) cm, strongly tarragon-scented or not aromatic; rhizomatous, caudices coarse. Perennials, 8–20 cm, mildly aromatic.
Stems

relatively numerous, erect, green to brown or reddish brown, somewhat woody, glabrous.

gray-brown, glabrate or finely pubescent.
Leaves

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).

deciduous, gray-green; petiolate;

blades (basal) broadly spatulate, 2–4 × 0.5 cm, pinnately lobed (lobes ca. 1.5 mm wide; cauline smaller, 1-pinnately lobed or entire), faces silky-hairy.
Involucres

globose, 2–3 × 2–3.5(–6) mm.

broadly hemispheric, 5–8 × 5–8(–10) mm.
Florets

pistillate 6–25; functionally staminate 8–20;

corollas pale yellow, 1.8–2 mm, eglandular or sparsely glandular.

pistillate 7–27;

bisexual 32–100;

corollas (yellow tinged with red), 2–3 mm (including exsert anthers), mostly glabrous (embedded in tangled receptacular hairs).
Phyllaries

(light brown, broadly lanceolate, membranous): margins broadly hyaline, glabrous.

gray (margins dark brown to black), villous.
Heads

in terminal or lateral, leafy, paniculiform arrays 15–45 × 6–30 cm; appearing ball-like on slender, sometimes nodding peduncles.

borne singly or (2–5, spreading to nodding, pedunculate) in paniculiform or racemiform arrays 1–5 × 0.5–1 cm.
Cypselae

oblong, 0.5–0.8 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.

1.5–2 mm, glabrous.
2n

= 18.

= 14.

Artemisia dracunculus

Artemisia pattersonii
Phenology Flowering mid summer–late fall. Flowering mid–late summer.
Habitat Open meadows and fields, desert scrub, moist drainages, roadsides Alpine meadows
Elevation 500–3000 m (1600–9800 ft) 3500–4000 m (11500–13100 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
AK; AZ; CA; CO; IA; ID; IL; KS; MN; MO; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OK; OR; SD; TX; UT; WA; WI; WY; AB; BC; MB; ON; SK; YT; Eurasia
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
CO; NM; WY
Discussion

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 pattersonii can be distinguished from the closely related A. scopulorum by its heads being borne singly and narrower phyllary margins.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 19, p. 508. FNA vol. 19, p. 520.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Drancunculus Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Absinthium
Sibling taxa
A. abrotanum, A. absinthium, A. alaskana, A. aleutica, A. annua, A. arbuscula, A. biennis, A. bigelovii, A. borealis, A. californica, A. campestris, A. cana, A. carruthii, A. douglasiana, A. filifolia, A. franserioides, A. frigida, A. furcata, A. globularia, A. glomerata, A. laciniata, A. longifolia, A. ludoviciana, A. michauxiana, A. nesiotica, A. norvegica, A. nova, A. packardiae, A. palmeri, A. papposa, A. pattersonii, A. pedatifida, A. pontica, A. porteri, A. pycnocephala, A. pygmaea, A. rigida, A. rothrockii, A. rupestris, A. scopulorum, A. senjavinensis, A. serrata, A. spiciformis, A. stelleriana, A. suksdorfii, A. tilesii, A. tridentata, A. tripartita, A. vulgaris
A. abrotanum, A. absinthium, A. alaskana, A. aleutica, A. annua, A. arbuscula, A. biennis, A. bigelovii, A. borealis, A. californica, A. campestris, A. cana, A. carruthii, A. douglasiana, A. dracunculus, A. filifolia, A. franserioides, A. frigida, A. furcata, A. globularia, A. glomerata, A. laciniata, A. longifolia, A. ludoviciana, A. michauxiana, A. nesiotica, A. norvegica, A. nova, A. packardiae, A. palmeri, A. papposa, A. pedatifida, A. pontica, A. porteri, A. pycnocephala, A. pygmaea, A. rigida, A. rothrockii, A. rupestris, A. scopulorum, A. senjavinensis, A. serrata, A. spiciformis, A. stelleriana, A. suksdorfii, A. tilesii, A. tridentata, A. tripartita, A. vulgaris
Synonyms A. aromatica, A. dracunculina, A. dracunculoides, A. dracunculoides subsp. dracunculina, A. glauca, A. glauca var. megacephala A. monocephala, A. scopulorum var. monocephala
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 849. (1753) A. Gray: in A. Gray et al., Syn. Fl. N. Amer. ed. 2, 1(2): 453. (1886)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Fabaceae, Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers