Artemisia pontica

Perennials, 40-100 cm, somewhat aromatic; rhizomes creeping, woody. Stems relatively numerous, erect, brown, mostly simple (brittle, bases woody) canescent or glabrate. 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). Heads (nodding) in paniculiform arrays 10-22 × 2-4 cm. Involucres spheric, 1.5-2(-3) mm. Phyllaries (subequal) linear, hairy. 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). Cypselae ellipsoid (angled), 0.1-0.2 mm, glabrous. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer-fall. Disturbed areas, valleys, shaded thickets; 100-500 m; introduced; Man., N.S., Ont., Que.; Conn., Del., Ill., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., R.I., Vt., Wis.; Eurasia.

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.

Rhizomatous perennial 4-10 dm, generally suffrutescent, simple or nearly so; lvs 1-3 cm, white-tomentose on both sides, more thinly so and sometimes eventually glabrate above, twice or thrice pinnatifid with short divergent segments scarcely 1 mm wide, ordinarily with a pair of stipule-like lobes or auricles at base; infl relatively narrow, elongate; invol 2-3 mm; achenes as in no. 1 [Artemisia abrotanum L.]; 2n=18. Dry open places; native of Europe, escaped and sparingly established in ne. U.S. and adj. Can. Aug., Sept.

Gleason, Henry A. & Cronquist, Arthur J. 1991. Manual of vascular plants of northeastern United States and adjacent Canada. lxxv + 910 pp.

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