Artemisia rutifolia Steph. ex Spreng.

A low, basally woody, densely sericeous shrublet with numerous sterile and fertile, 20-80 cm high, stiff, angular-striate, erect or asending, regularly leafy, simple stems from woody, much branched, c. 1.5 – 2.5 cm thick rootstock. Basal and lower stem leaves with c. 5 – 10 mm long petiole, lamina palmately bipinnatisect, orbicular to oblate or flabellate, 5 – 25 x 8 – 30 mm, primary segments flabellate with linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 2 – 12 x 0.5 – 1.5 mm, obtuse lobules; upper cauline leaves subsessile to sessile, gradually reduced and less dissected; uppermost in floral region 3-fid to linear, entire. Capitula heterogamous, shortly peduncled, subglobose, 3.5 – 5 mm long, ± nodding, secund in ± oblong, 15 – 20 x 3 – 4 cm panicle with 4 – 6 (-8) cm long, obliquely erect branches. Involucre 3 – 4-seriate; phyllaries densely sericeous, ± keeled, outer linear-oblong, c. 2 x 1.25 mm, obtuse; inner elliptic, c. 3 – 3.5 x c. 2 mm, with a short hyaline appendage. Receptacle glabrous, ± flattened. Florets yellow, pinkish tinged, 15 – 40; marginal florets female, 6 – 12, with narrowly tubular, c. 1 mm long, glandulose and hairy, 2-toothed corolla; disc-florets bisexual, 10 – 28, with c. 2 mm long, 5-dentate, hairy and glandulose corolla. Cypselas oblanceolate, c. 1.25 mm long.

Distribution: Iran, Pakistan (Chitral, Gilgit, Kashmir), N. W. India (?), Tibet, China, Mongolia and Russia (Siberia, Tian Shan, Pamir Alai, Dzungaro-Tarbagatai).

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Common in gravel-mixed sandy soils from 2200 to c. 4000 m in Northern mountain ranges.

A. turczaninowiana Besser, l. c. 23. 1834; DC., l. c. 106; Ledeb., Fl. Ross. 2: 577. 1845; Boiss., Fl. Or. 3: 369. 1875; A. turczaninowiana Besser var. altaica Krylov, Fl. Alt. 3: 61. 1904; Pamp. in Nuouv. Giorn. Bot. Ital. n. s. 34: 706. 1927; A. turczaninowiana var. dasyantha Schrenk, Enum. Pl. Nov. 50. 1841; Kitam., Fl. Afghan. 389. 1960; A. rutifolia Spreng. var. dasyantha (Schrenk) Kitam., Fl. W. Pak. & Afgh. 142. 1964; A. falconeri C.B.Clarke in Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 328. 1881.