Artemisia nova
Artemisia filifolia
black sage, black sagebrush
sand sage, sand sagebrush, sandhill sage, silvery wormwood
brown, glabrescent (vegetative of approximately equal heights, giving plants a ‘hedged’ appearance; bark dark gray, exfoliating with age).
green or gray-green, wandlike (usually slender, curved, sometimes stout and stunted in harsh habitats), glabrous or sparsely hairy.
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.
gray-green;
blades linear if entire, obovate if lobed, (1.5–)2–5(–6) × 0.1–2.5 cm, entire to 3-lobed, lobes filiform (less than 1 mm wide), apices acute, glabrous or sparsely hairy.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 2 mm.
globose, 1.5–2 × 1.5–2 mm.
2–6;
corollas 2–3 mm, glabrous (style branches scarcely exsert).
pistillate 1–4; functionally staminate 3–6;
corollas pale yellow, 1–1.5 mm, glabrous.
(straw-colored or light green) ovate to elliptic (margins hyaline, shiny-resinous), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
(ovate, inconspicuous, margins scarious) densely hairy.
in paniculiform arrays 4–10 × 0.5–3 cm (branches ± erect; peduncles slender).
(mostly sessile) in paniculiform arrays 8–15(–17) × 2–4(–5) cm (branches erect to somewhat recurved).
(ribbed) 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
oblong (distally incurved-falcate and oblique), 0.2–0.5 mm, obscurely nerved, glabrous.
= 18, 36.
= 18.
Artemisia nova
Artemisia filifolia
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.)
One of the more easily distinguished of the shrubby Artemisia species, A. filifolia occurs in sandy soils and cohabits with species of Yucca, Cactaceae, and Salvia dorrii, the purple sage of western literary fame. Its filiform leaves and faintly aromatic foliage distinguish it from members of subg. Tridentatae.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
CA
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
SW CO Wildflowers
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
KS Wildflowers
