Artemisia dracunculus
Artemisia pygmaea
dragon herb, dragon sagewort, dragon wormwood, tarragon, wild tarragon
pygmy sage, pygmy sagebrush
relatively numerous, erect, green to brown or reddish brown, somewhat woody, glabrous.
pale to light brown (stiffly erect, densely clothed with appressed foliage), sparsely tomentose.
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 (sessile, rigid), bright green;
blades oblong to ovate, 0.3–0.5 × 0.2–0.3 cm, pinnately lobed (nearly to midribs, 1/3+ widths of blades, lobes 3–7, divergent), faces glabrous or sparsely tomentose, resinous.
globose, 2–3 × 2–3.5(–6) mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 3–4 mm.
pistillate 6–25; functionally staminate 8–20;
corollas pale yellow, 1.8–2 mm, eglandular or sparsely glandular.
2–6;
corollas 2.5–3 mm, glandular (style branches flat, erose, exsert).
(light brown, broadly lanceolate, membranous): margins broadly hyaline, glabrous.
(green) narrowly lanceolate (midribs prominent), glabrous or sparsely tomentose.
in terminal or lateral, leafy, paniculiform arrays 15–45 × 6–30 cm; appearing ball-like on slender, sometimes nodding peduncles.
(sessile, erect) in paniculiform to racemiform arrays (1–)2–3 × 0.5–1 cm.
oblong, 0.5–0.8 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.
(prismatic) 0.4–0.5 mm, glabrous, resinous.
= 18.
= 18.
Artemisia dracunculus
Artemisia pygmaea
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 pygmaea is a distinctive, faintly aromatic shrublet, often mistaken for something other than a sagebrush. In early spring its stiff, bright green, deeply pinnatifid leaves are reminiscent of some prickly member of Polemoniaceae. After flowering, its heads and narrow panicles easily identify it as a member of Artemisia; it is unlike other members of the subgenus (which typically have 3-lobed leaves in fascicled lateral shoots). The molecular analysis by L. E. Watson et al. (2002) supported its phylogenetic alignment within subg. Tridentatae.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
IL Wildflowers, 
KS Wildflowers, 
MN Wildflowers, 
MO Plants, 
PNW Herbaria, 
SW CO Wildflowers, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
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