Artemisia absinthium

Native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and India. Introduced and cultivated as a garden ornamental. Escaped and naturalized in North America.

Streambanks, old fields, pastures, railroads, disturbed sites. Full sun to partial shade.

July to September

Pale yellow

16″ to 40″

This is a 16″ to 40″ tall, erect, long-lived, perennial forb that rises on 20 or more stems from a stout, woody taproot. Like most Artemisia species, the leaves and stem are strongly aromatic when bruised.

The stems are erect or ascending, usually branched, and sometimes woody near the base. When young they are densely covered with short, silky hairs, giving them a grayish-green appearance. Older stems sometimes become nearly hairless.

Basal leaves are deciduous, up to 8″ long, and on long leaf stalks. They do not have stipule-like lobes or teeth at the base. They are deeply pinnately lobed into 3 or 5 primary lobes (pinnate). The primary lobes are again divided into secondary lobes (bipinnate), which may be once more lobed (3 times pinnately lobed). The ultimate lobes are inversely egg-shaped, 1 ⁄16″ to ⅛″ wide, and are rounded at the tip. When young, the upper and lower surfaces are densely covered with short, silky hairs, giving them a grayish-green appearance. The upper surface of mature leaves is sometimes nearly hairless. The margins are untoothed.

Lower stem leaves are similar, alternate, 2″ to 4″ long, and on shorter leaf stalks, becoming even smaller, less divided, and on shorter stalks as they ascend the stem. The uppermost leaves may be undivided and stalkless.

The inflorescence is an open, leafy, elongated, branched cluster (panicle) of at the end of the stems and branches. The panicles are 4″ to 8″ long or longer, 4″ to 5″ wide or wider, and have numerous flower heads.

The flower heads small and inconspicuous and droop downward. The whorl of bracts at the base of the flower head (involucre) is broadly egg-shaped, 1 ⁄16″ to ⅛″ long, and ⅛″ to 3 ⁄16″ wide. The bracts of the involucre are densely covered with silky hairs and have broad, thin, papery, transparent margins and tip. There are no ray florets. The disk has female (pistillate) florets as well as florets that have both male and female parts (perfect). On the margin of the disk are 9 to 20 pale yellow, pistillate florets. In the center are 30 to 50 pale yellow, perfect florets.

The fruit is a tiny achene.

Mugwort (Artemisia vulgaris) has leaves with a green, hairless upper surface and ultimate lobes that are sharply pointed. The flower heads are smaller