Artemisia palmeri
Artemisia nova
Palmer sagewort, San Diego sagewort
black sage, black sagebrush
usually 1–15, erect, brown, simple (wandlike, brittle, bases woody), glabrous.
brown, glabrescent (vegetative of approximately equal heights, giving plants a ‘hedged’ appearance; bark dark gray, exfoliating with age).
cauline (petiolate), bicolor (gray-green and dark green);
blades broadly lanceolate, 3.5–12(–15) × 0.2–10 cm, relatively deeply and coarsely pinnately lobed (lobes 3–7+), faces canescent (abaxial) or glabrous or sparsely hairy (adaxial).
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.
globose, 2.5–3.5 × 2–5 mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 2 mm.
pistillate 0;
bisexual 8–30;
corollas pale yellow, 1.5–2.2 mm, resinous-glandular (style branches exsert, truncate, erose).
2–6;
corollas 2–3 mm, glabrous (style branches scarcely exsert).
(pale green to stramineous) broadly ovate, glabrous or sparsely hairy (receptacles paleate).
(straw-colored or light green) ovate to elliptic (margins hyaline, shiny-resinous), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
(erect or nodding, peduncles relatively slender) in open, paniculiform arrays, 15–40 × 3–10 cm (widely branched).
in paniculiform arrays 4–10 × 0.5–3 cm (branches ± erect; peduncles slender).
(light brown, shiny) ellipsoid, 1–1.2 mm, (4-angled), glabrous or glandular.
(ribbed) 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
= 18.
= 18, 36.
Artemisia palmeri
Artemisia nova
Of conservation concern.
Artemisia palmeri is known only from drainages near the coast, from northeast of San Diego to just south of Ensenada. Most of its habitat has been destroyed by urban development. It is of particular interest because of its paleate receptacles, an anomalous trait that confounds our understanding of its evolutionary relationship to other species of Artemisia.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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.)
CA
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist
USDA Plants Database
OR
Flora NW
PNW Herbaria
SW CO Wildflowers
