Artemisia spiciformis
Artemisia pygmaea
big sagebrush, snowfield sagebrush, spike sagebrush
pygmy sage, pygmy sagebrush
relatively numerous, brown or grayish green.
pale to light brown (stiffly erect, densely clothed with appressed foliage), sparsely tomentose.
± deciduous (by late summer, turning yellow);
blades lanceolate, oblanceolate, or cuneate, 2.5–5.5 × 0.8–1.2+ cm, entire or irregularly 3–6-lobed (lobes to 1/3 blade lengths, 1.5+ mm wide, rounded or acute; leaves of flowering stems usually smaller, entire), faces ± sericeous or tomentose.
persistent (sessile, rigid), bright green;
blades oblong to ovate, 0.3–0.5 × 0.2–0.3 cm, pinnately lobed (nearly to midribs, 1/3+ widths of blades, lobes 3–7, divergent), faces glabrous or sparsely tomentose, resinous.
ovoid or lanceoloid, (2.5–)4–6(–7) mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 3–4 mm.
8–18(–27);
corollas 2.5–3.5, glabrous.
2–6;
corollas 2.5–3 mm, glandular (style branches flat, erose, exsert).
lanceolate, sparsely to densely hairy.
(green) narrowly lanceolate (midribs prominent), glabrous or sparsely tomentose.
(erect) in (leafy) paniculiform arrays 8–15(–25) × 0.5–3(–4) cm.
(sessile, erect) in paniculiform to racemiform arrays (1–)2–3 × 0.5–1 cm.
1–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
(prismatic) 0.4–0.5 mm, glabrous, resinous.
= 18, 36, 54, 72.
= 18.
Artemisia spiciformis
Artemisia pygmaea
Often confused with Artemisia rothrockii, A. spiciformis has been recognized only recently as a widespread, high-elevation sagebrush of late-lying snowfields. Molecular analysis has not yet determined the degree to which this species intergrades with A. cana subsp. viscidula and A. tridentata subsp. vaseyana, the presumed parents of this putative hybrid. Because snow-field sagebrush produces fertile seeds and forms a stable community type, it is treated here as a distinct species.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Artemisia pygmaea is a distinctive, faintly aromatic shrublet, often mistaken for something other than a sagebrush. In early spring its stiff, bright green, deeply pinnatifid leaves are reminiscent of some prickly member of Polemoniaceae. After flowering, its heads and narrow panicles easily identify it as a member of Artemisia; it is unlike other members of the subgenus (which typically have 3-lobed leaves in fascicled lateral shoots). The molecular analysis by L. E. Watson et al. (2002) supported its phylogenetic alignment within subg. Tridentatae.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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