Artemisia dracunculus |
Artemisia tridentata |
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dragon herb, dragon sagewort, dragon wormwood, tarragon, wild tarragon |
big sagebrush, blue sagebrush, common sagebrush, mountain sagebrush, sagebrush |
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Habit | Perennials or subshrubs, 50–120(–150) cm, strongly tarragon-scented or not aromatic; rhizomatous, caudices coarse. | Shrubs, 40–200(–300) cm (herbage gray-haired), aromatic; not root-sprouting (trunks relatively thick). | ||||||||||||
Stems | relatively numerous, erect, green to brown or reddish brown, somewhat woody, glabrous. |
gray-brown, glabrate (bark gray, exfoliating in strips). |
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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). |
persistent, gray-green; blades usually cuneate, (0.4–)0.5–3.5 × 0.1–0.7 cm, 3-lobed (lobes to 1/3 blade lengths, 1.5+ mm wide, rounded), faces densely hairy. |
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Involucres | globose, 2–3 × 2–3.5(–6) mm. |
lanceolate, (1–)1.5–4 × 1–3 mm. |
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Florets | pistillate 6–25; functionally staminate 8–20; corollas pale yellow, 1.8–2 mm, eglandular or sparsely glandular. |
3–8; corollas 1.5–2.5 mm, glabrous. |
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Phyllaries | (light brown, broadly lanceolate, membranous): margins broadly hyaline, glabrous. |
oblanceolate to widely obovate, densely tomentose. |
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Heads | in terminal or lateral, leafy, paniculiform arrays 15–45 × 6–30 cm; appearing ball-like on slender, sometimes nodding peduncles. |
(usually erect, on slender peduncles) in paniculiform arrays 5–30 × 1–6 cm. |
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Cypselae | oblong, 0.5–0.8 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous. |
1–2 mm, hairy or glabrous, glandular. |
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2n | = 18. |
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Artemisia dracunculus |
Artemisia tridentata |
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Phenology | Flowering mid summer–late fall. | |||||||||||||
Habitat | Open meadows and fields, desert scrub, moist drainages, roadsides | |||||||||||||
Elevation | 500–3000 m (1600–9800 ft) | |||||||||||||
Distribution |
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
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AZ; CA; CO; ID; MT; ND; NE; NM; NV; OR; SD; UT; WA; WY; AB; BC; nw Mexico
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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.) |
Subspecies 4 (4 in the flora). Artemisia tridentata has undergone considerable taxonomic revision in the past century and circumscription of subspecies remains a topic of considerable controversy. Workers in the field should be aware of the morphologic variation within the subspecies across the range of the species (i.e., approximately from the Sierra Nevada in the west to the plains of the Rocky Mountains in the east). Because rangeland managers and conservationists can often identify local morphologic and chemical races based on grazing or habitat preferences of wildlife and domestic animals, some impetus exists to further subdivide the subspecies within A. tridentata at the varietal level. This treatment of the species complex remains conservative in light of the need for further study. As to chemical differences among the subspecies, aroma is often used to distinguish subspecies in the field. Volatile resins in the plants are strongly aromatic and, when crushed, leaves have very distinctive (although not easily described) aromas. (Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.) |
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Key |
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Source | FNA vol. 19, p. 508. | FNA vol. 19, p. 516. | ||||||||||||
Parent taxa | Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Drancunculus | Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Tridentatae | ||||||||||||
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Synonyms | A. aromatica, A. dracunculina, A. dracunculoides, A. dracunculoides subsp. dracunculina, A. glauca, A. glauca var. megacephala | Seriphidium tridentatum | ||||||||||||
Name authority | Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 849. (1753) | Nuttall: Trans. Amer. Philos. Soc., n. s. 7: 398. (1841) | ||||||||||||
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