Artemisia tilesii
Artemisia nova
Aleutian mugwort, Cascade wormwood, Tilesius' wormwood
black sage, black sagebrush
1–3, erect, white, tomentose (on distal branches, hairs appressed) or glabrate.
brown, glabrescent (vegetative of approximately equal heights, giving plants a ‘hedged’ appearance; bark dark gray, exfoliating with age).
basal and cauline, bicolor (white and green);
blades (basal) linear to broadly lanceolate, 3–7(–10) × 2–5(–6) cm, coarsely pinnately lobed (cauline becoming linear distally), faces tomentose (abaxial) or glabrous (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.
broadly campanulate, 4–5 × 3.5–4 mm.
narrowly turbinate, 2–3 × 2 mm.
pistillate 9;
bisexual 25–60;
corollas yellow, 1.5–3 mm, glabrous (style branches included, erect, linear, relatively short, short-ciliate).
2–6;
corollas 2–3 mm, glabrous (style branches scarcely exsert).
(violet-brown) oval (outer) to elliptic or lanceolate, sparsely tomentose.
(straw-colored or light green) ovate to elliptic (margins hyaline, shiny-resinous), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
in compact to broadly branched, paniculiform arrays 1–20 × 2–6 cm.
in paniculiform arrays 4–10 × 0.5–3 cm (branches ± erect; peduncles slender).
oblong-linear (angular), 1.2–1.5 mm, glabrous.
(ribbed) 0.8–1.5 mm, glabrous or resinous.
= 18, 36.
= 18, 36.
Artemisia tilesii
Artemisia nova
Artemisia tilesii has a bewildering array of variation in leaf and inflorescence morphology that has been separated into four infraspecific taxa recognized in some floras. I am unable to separate these taxa consistently and am including them within a broad circumscription of the species.
(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.)
- Local floras:
BC, 
OR, 
WA - Local Web sites:
Flora NW, 
PNW Herbaria 
WildflowerSearch
iNaturalist (observations)
USDA Plants Database- LBJ Wildflower Center
- SEINet
- Plants of the World Online
- Encyclopedia of Life
- Wikipedia
- Google Image Search
CA
SW CO Wildflowers
