Artemisia vulgaris
Artemisia pycnocephala
armoise vulgaire, common mugwort, common wormwood, felon-herb, green-ginger, lobed wormwood, mugwort
beach sagewort, beach wormwood, coastal sagewort, sandhill sage
relatively numerous, erect, brownish to reddish brown, simple proximally, branched distally (angularly ribbed), sparsely hairy or glabrous.
usually 10+ (rising beyond basal leaves, decumbent), whitish gray, (ca. 5 mm diam., densely leafy) densely hairy.
basal (petiolate) and cauline (sessile), uniformly green or bicolor;
blades broadly lanceolate, ovate, or linear, (2–)3–10(–12) × 1.8–8 cm (proximal reduced and entire, distal pinnately dissected, lobes to 20 mm wide), faces pubescent or glabrescent (abaxial) or glabrous (adaxial).
persistent, gray-green;
blades broadly lanceolate, faces woolly-hairy;
proximalmost blades 3–8 × 2–6 cm, 2–3-pinnatifid, lobes linear (to 2 mm wide);
cauline somewhat reduced, 2–3 × 0.8–1.2 cm;
apices acute, faces hairy.
ovoid to campanulate, 2–3(–4) mm.
globose, 3–4.5 × 3–4.5 mm.
pistillate 7–10;
bisexual (5–)8–20;
corollas yellowish to reddish brown, 1.5–3 mm, glabrous (style branches arched-curved, truncate, ciliate).
pistillate 5–20; functionally staminate 12–25;
corollas pale yellow (broadly tubular), ca. 2 mm, glabrous.
lanceolate, hairy or glabrescent.
lanceolate, margins obscured by indument, hairs straight.
in compact, paniculiform or racemiform arrays (10–)20–30(–40) × (5–)7–15(–20) cm.
(sessile, clustered in glomerules) in (densely leafy) paniculiform to spiciform arrays 10–20(–30) × 1–4 cm.
ellipsoid, 0.5–1(–1.2) mm, glabrous, sometimes resinous.
ellipsoid (faintly nerved), 1–1.5 mm, glabrous.
= 18, 36, 40, 54.
Artemisia vulgaris
Artemisia pycnocephala
Grown as a medicinal plant, most commonly as a vermifuge, Artemisia vulgaris is widely established in eastern North America and is often weedy in disturbed sites. Populational differences in morphologic forms are reflected in size of flowering heads, degree of dissection of leaves, and overall color of plants (from pale to dark green), suggesting multiple introductions that may date back to the first visits by Europeans. It is tempting to recognize the different forms as subspecies and varieties; the array of variation in the field is bewildering. If genetically distinct forms exist in native populations, the differences appear to have been blurred by introgression among the various introductions in North America. A case could be made for recognizing var. kamtschatica in Alaska based on its larger heads and shorter growth form; apparent introgression with populations that extend across Canada confounds that taxonomic segregation.
(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)
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