Artemisia stelleriana
Artemisia californica
armoise de Steller, beach wormwood, dusty miller, oldwoman, Steller's wormwood
California sagebrush, coastal sage brush
1–3, erect or ascending, white, simple (stout), densely tomentose to floccose.
relatively numerous, arched, green or brown, branched (slender, wandlike, bases brittle), densely canescent to glabrate.
basal and cauline (petiolate), silver-gray;
blades oblanceolate, (proximalmost) 3–10 × 1–5 cm, pinnatifid (lobes relatively broad, rounded; distal leaves, on flowering stems, smaller), faces densely tomentose.
cauline, light green to gray;
blades filiform or spatulate to obovate, 3–5(–9) × 0.5–2 cm, sometimes pinnately lobed (lobes filiform, 0.5–1 mm wide), faces sparsely to densely hairy.
broadly campanulate, 5–8 × 6–7 mm.
globose, 2–3(–4) × 2–4(–5) mm.
pistillate 12–16;
bisexual 25–30;
corollas yellow (narrow or tubular), 3.2–4 mm (unusually large), glabrous or sparsely hairy (style branches prominent, erect, blunt).
pistillate 6–10;
bisexual 18–25;
corollas pale yellow, 0.8–1.2 mm, glabrous.
broadly lanceolate, tomentose.
broadly ovate, sparsely canescent.
(erect or spreading, peduncles 0 or to 3 mm) in dense, paniculiform, racemiform, or spiciform arrays 8–20 × 2–4 cm.
(nodding at maturity, pedunculate) in paniculiform arrays 6–20 × 1–3 cm (branches erect to broadly spreading).
(dark brown) narrowly oblong-linear (slightly flattened, smooth), 3–4 mm, glabrous.
ellipsoid, 0.5–1.5 mm, resinous (pappi coroniform).
= 18.
= 18.
Artemisia stelleriana
Artemisia californica
Artemisia stelleriana is apparently native along the western tip of the Aleutian islands (D. F. Murray, pers. comm.). It is an attractive ornamental and, in parts of its range in the flora area, it appears to have escaped from cultivation and is naturalized in beach dunes and other sandy habitats.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
Artemisia californica is the common sagebrush of chaparral in southern California. Its threadlike leaves and green flowering heads distinguish it from any other shrub in California. Artemisia nesiotica, an endemic of the Channel Islands that was initially considered a morphologic variant of A. californica, is distinct in size and form. Systematic placement of the complex may be problematic. The molecular phylogeny of L. E. Watson et al. (2002) suggests an alignment of A. californica within subg. Tridentatae. Based on this finding, a subgeneric realignment of this species may be in order. The odor of A. californica is markedly like that of the culinary mints known as common sage (Salvia species).
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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