Flora of North America species comparison

The green links below add additional plants to the comparison table. Blue links lead to other Web sites.
enable glossary links

Artemisia pontica

Artemisia rigida

armoise de la mer noire, green-ginger, roman wormwood

scabland sagebrush, stiff sagebrush
Habit Perennials, 40–100 cm, somewhat aromatic; rhizomes creeping, woody. Shrubs, 20–40 cm (branches widely spreading), mildly aromatic; root-sprouting (caudices stout).
Stems

relatively numerous, erect, brown, mostly simple (brittle, bases woody) canescent or glabrate.

gray (coarse, brittle), hairy (bark gray, exfoliating).
Leaves

cauline, grayish green;

sessile (proximalmost short-petiolate);

blades triangular to ovate, 1–5 × 1–3 cm, 2–3-pinnatifid (lobes 0.5–1 mm wide, acute), faces pubescent (abaxial) or hairy to glabrate (adaxial).

deciduous, silver-gray (rigid);

blades broadly spatulate, 1.5–4 × 0.5–0.7 cm (bases narrow), 3-lobed (lobes 1/2+ blade lengths, ca. 1 mm wide), faces densely hairy.
Involucres

spheric, 1.5–2(–3) mm.

narrowly campanulate, 4–5 × 2.5–3.5 mm.
Florets

pistillate 10–12;

bisexual 40–45;

corollas pale yellow, 0.2–0.3 mm, sometimes gland-dotted (stigma lobes relatively short, not emerging from tubes, short-ciliate).

4–8;

corollas yellowish red to red, 2–2.8 mm (style branches oblong, truncate, exsert).
Phyllaries

(subequal) linear, hairy.

elliptic (acute to obtuse), densely canescent.
Heads

(nodding) in paniculiform arrays 10–22 × 2–4 cm.

borne singly or (in glomerules) in (densely leafy) spiciform or paniculiform arrays 2–20 × 2 cm.
Cypselae

ellipsoid (angled), 0.1–0.2 mm, glabrous.

(4–5-ribbed) 1–1.5 mm, glabrous.
2n

= 18.

= 18, 36.

Artemisia pontica

Artemisia rigida
Phenology Flowering late summer–fall. Flowering mid summer–early fall.
Habitat Disturbed areas, valleys, shaded thickets Dry rocky scablands, volcanic plains
Elevation 100–500 m (300–1600 ft) 1500–1800 m (4900–5900 ft)
Distribution
from FNA
CT; DE; IL; KY; MA; MD; ME; MI; MN; NH; NJ; NY; OH; PA; RI; VT; WI; MB; NS; ON; QC; Eurasia [Introduced in North America]
[BONAP county map]
from FNA
ID; MT; OR; WA
[WildflowerSearch map]
[BONAP county map]
Discussion

Artemisia pontica has finely dissected gray foliage and is widely planted as an ornamental. It escapes locally; it has not been reported as problematic. The only species with which it has been confused in North America is A. abrotanum, which has dark green (not gray) foliage.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Artemisia rigida is an important successional species following fires because the plants form new shoots from the underground caudices. This characteristic aligns the species with other ‘sprouters’ in the subgenus, namely A. cana, A. tripartita, and A. arbuscula.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Source FNA vol. 19, p. 531. FNA vol. 19, p. 515.
Parent taxa Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Artemisia Asteraceae > tribe Anthemideae > Artemisia > subg. Tridentatae
Sibling taxa
A. abrotanum, A. absinthium, A. alaskana, A. aleutica, A. annua, A. arbuscula, A. biennis, A. bigelovii, A. borealis, A. californica, A. campestris, A. cana, A. carruthii, A. douglasiana, A. dracunculus, A. filifolia, A. franserioides, A. frigida, A. furcata, A. globularia, A. glomerata, A. laciniata, A. longifolia, A. ludoviciana, A. michauxiana, A. nesiotica, A. norvegica, A. nova, A. packardiae, A. palmeri, A. papposa, A. pattersonii, A. pedatifida, A. porteri, A. pycnocephala, A. pygmaea, A. rigida, A. rothrockii, A. rupestris, A. scopulorum, A. senjavinensis, A. serrata, A. spiciformis, A. stelleriana, A. suksdorfii, A. tilesii, A. tridentata, A. tripartita, A. vulgaris
A. abrotanum, A. absinthium, A. alaskana, A. aleutica, A. annua, A. arbuscula, A. biennis, A. bigelovii, A. borealis, A. californica, A. campestris, A. cana, A. carruthii, A. douglasiana, A. dracunculus, A. filifolia, A. franserioides, A. frigida, A. furcata, A. globularia, A. glomerata, A. laciniata, A. longifolia, A. ludoviciana, A. michauxiana, A. nesiotica, A. norvegica, A. nova, A. packardiae, A. palmeri, A. papposa, A. pattersonii, A. pedatifida, A. pontica, A. porteri, A. pycnocephala, A. pygmaea, A. rothrockii, A. rupestris, A. scopulorum, A. senjavinensis, A. serrata, A. spiciformis, A. stelleriana, A. suksdorfii, A. tilesii, A. tridentata, A. tripartita, A. vulgaris
Synonyms A. trifida var. rigida, Seriphidium rigidum
Name authority Linnaeus: Sp. Pl. 2: 847. (1753) (Nuttall) A. Gray: Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts 19: 49. (1883)
Web links 
Unless otherwise noted, all data comes from the online version of the Flora of North America, who have made most of their content available via a Creative Commons license (CC BY 4.0).



Type/paste one or more Latin names into the boxes above; matching taxa will show up below the box as you type. You can use the up/down arrow keys to move through the list.

(If the plant you're looking for doesn't show up in the auto-complete list, that means it either isn't described in Flora of North America yet, or it's listed under a synonym. And please note that Flora of North America is still missing several plant families, including Apiaceae, Boraginaceae, and Polemoniaceae.)

Choose a data source: Flora of North America, OregonFlora, UW Burke Herbarium

The species comparison tool is brought to you by:
Northwest Wildflowers