Artemisia globularia
Artemisia ludoviciana
purple wormwood
gray sagewort, prairie sage, silver sage, silver wormwood, western mugwort, western wormwood, white sage, white sagebrush, white wormwood
1–5, erect, whitish gray, densely tomentose.
relatively few to relatively numerous, erect, gray-green, simple or widely branched, hairy.
mostly basal (cauline 1–4), greenish to whitish green;
blades (basal) 1–4.5 × 0.6–1.5 cm, 1–2-ternately to palmately lobed (flowering-stem blades 3-lobed), faces sparsely hairy.
cauline, uniformly gray-green, green, or white, or bicolor (white and green);
blades linear to broadly elliptic, 1.5–11 × 0.5–4 cm, entire or lobed to relatively deeply pinnatifid, faces hairy.
campanulate or hemispheric, 3.5–6 × 6–11 mm.
campanulate or turbinate, (1–)2–4(–5) × 2–5(–8) mm.
pistillate 9–10;
bisexual 20–30;
corollas yellow or reddish black, 2–3 mm, sometimes glandular.
pistillate 5–12;
bisexual 6–45;
corollas yellow, sometimes red-tinged, 1.5–2.8 mm, glabrous.
lanceolate (margins brown), pilose.
(gray-green), lanceolate to ovate or obovate (margins narrowly hyaline), densely tomentose.
(2–20, peduncles 0 or to 25 mm) in subcapitate to capitate arrays 2–3 × 2–3 cm.
(erect to nodding, peduncles 0 or 2–5 mm) in congested to open (widely branched) arrays.
oblong, 1.5–2.5 mm, (apices flattened) glabrous.
ellipsoid ca. 0.5 mm, (obscurely nerved) glabrous.
= 18, 36, 54.
Artemisia globularia
Artemisia ludoviciana
Subspecies 2 (2 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Subspecies ca. 7 (6 in the flora).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
1. Corollas reddish black; cypselae ca. 2.5 mm, margins with relatively narrow ribs | subsp. globularia |
1. Corollas yellow; cypselae 1.5–2 mm, margins with relatively broad ribs | subsp. lutea |
1. Leaves usually relatively deeply lobed (1/3+ widths, nearly to midrib, proximal leaves sometimes entire); involucres 3–8 mm diam.; mountain meadows and slopes | → 2 |
1. Leaves entire or relatively shallowly lobed (lobes to 1/3 widths); involucres 2–3(–4) mm diam.; desert valleys and mountains | → 3 |
2. Involucres 4–5 × 4–8 mm | subsp. candicans |
2. Involucres 3–4 × 3–5 mm | subsp. incompta |
3. Heads in paniculiform arrays (4–)8–30 cm diam.; leaves mostly 1.5–2 cm | subsp. albula |
3. Heads in paniculiform or racemiform arrays 1–6 cm diam.; leaves 1.5–11 cm | → 4 |
4. Leaf margins plane | subsp. ludoviciana |
4. Leaf margins revolute | → 5 |
5. Leaves bicolor (gray-green and bright green), margins mostly entire, abaxial faces glabrous | subsp. redolens |
5. Leaves gray-green, margins usually lobed, abaxial faces hairy | subsp. mexicana |
- Local floras:
BC, 
CA, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites: CalFlora, CalPhotos,
Flora NW, 
Go Botany, 
IL Wildflowers, 
KS Wildflowers, 
LA Plants, 
MD Biodiversity, 
MI Flora, 
MN Wildflowers, 
MO Plants, 
PNW Herbaria, 
SW CO Wildflowers, Turner Photog. 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
