Leaves lanceolate (much longer than wide, wider toward the base) to narrowly elliptic (symmetrical oval, wider in the middle) if margins are entire (smooth-edged) or oblanceolate (much longer than wide, wider toward the tip) to obovate (egg-shaped, wider toward the tip) if margins are divided into a 3-5 coarse lobes or teeth toward the tip. Leaves glabrous (smooth-surfaced) green or slightly tomentose (woolly) grey-green above, silvery and densely tomentose beneath, ~6-15 cm long, sagebrush smell. Midrib fairly conspicuous, indenting the topside of the leaf, with pinnate veining branching off from this. Inflorescence is a loose panicle (a compound, branching raceme or spike) 10-30 cm long by 3-9 cm wide, leafy, with wide branches holding drooping or nodding bell-shaped yellowish flower heads. Flower heads are composite, involucres (structure of ~8-14 phyllaries or bracts under the head) ~3-4 mm long, bell-shaped, and tomentose. It may be hard to see at this scale, but there are ~6-10 yellowish ray flowers and ~9-25 yellowish disk flowers. Blooms June through October. Fruit is a tiny (< 1 mm) glabrous brown achene (dry, 1-seeded fruit). Plant is a subshrub (woody only at the base with many erect herbaceous stems above) about 0.5 - 2.5 m high. Unlike most other Artemisia species, it can reproduce vegetatively through rhizomes running under the ground surface. Common plant found in open or shady locations, especially in damp drainages or basins under 2200 m, in many plant communities, including California sage scrub, chaparral, woodlands and forests, and the edges of deserts. It is found through most of California west of the Sierra-Cascades, the Transverse and Peninsular ranges, and the Great Basin, north of California to Washington and Idaho and south into Baja.
Artemisia douglasiana aka A. vulgaris var. douglasiana aka A. vulgaris var. douglasiana or subsp. heterophylla (Asteraceae aka Compositae): California mugwort, Douglas' sagewort, mugwort
The development of this key was partially funded through the Geoscience Diversity Enhancement Program (Award #0703798) and through a course of re-assigned time provided by the CSULB Scholarly and Creative Activities Committee. Thanks also to the students in sections of biogeography, introductory physical geography, GDEP, and LSAMP for "test-driving" various editions of this key.