Perennials, 5-10 cm (cespitose), mildly aromatic; caudices branched. Stems usually 1, reddish brown to gray, tomentose to glabrate. Leaves persistent, mostly basal, gray-green; (petioles often expanded) blades (at least proximal) obovate, 1.5-5 × 0.5-1 cm, 2-palmately lobed, lobes relatively narrow, apices acute, faces densely white-villous (brownish in age); cauline smaller, distally 1-ternate. Heads (sessile or peduncles 2-15 mm) in racemiform or spiciform arrays, 1.5-3 × 0.5-1 cm. Involucres hemispheric or globose, (2-)5-7 × (2-)6-8 mm. Phyllaries villous. Florets: pistillate 4-6; functionally staminate 15-30; corollas purplish red, 1.5-2 mm, hairy. Cypselae oblong, ca. 1 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous.

Flowering mid-late summer. Open areas, fellfield tundra; of conservation concern; 0-100 m; Alaska.

Artemisia aleutica is known only from the western Aleutian Islands. It is morphologically similar to A. borealis. and the relationships of these species complexes warrant further study.