Nelson : New Plants from Wyoming 273 



^ Artemisia aromatica 



Perennial from a woody, much branched caudex ; the whole 

 plant dark green and nearly or quite glabrous from the first, 

 heavily but rather pleasantly aromatic scented ; the numerous 

 stems tufted, mostly simple, sometimes sparingly branched from 

 the base, more or less branched above in respect to the inflor- 

 escence, striate, from spreading ascending to nearly erect, 4—8 dm. 

 high : leaves nearly all entire, some of the lower 3 -cleft, narrowly 

 to broadly linear, 1— several cm. long, numerous, many produced 

 on short, slender, sterile, axillary shoots : inflorescence panicu- 

 late, leafy ; the heads numerous, nodding on short slender ped- 

 icels, 3-4 mm. in diameter : involucre glabrous, the bracts ob- 

 long-elliptic, obtuse, dark green with scarious margins : flowers 

 numerous, the fertile 10-20, the sterile hermaphrodite about twice 

 as many. 



This species is A. dracunculoides of Gray's Syn. Fl. and of 

 Britt. & Br. 111. Fl. in part both as to description and range. 

 That it is distinct from A. dracunadoides Pursh seems to me clear. 

 His description was drawn from that Mississippi Valley plant, 

 which is much larger, freely branched, the branches drooping 

 (ramis nutantibus) and the heads fewer flowered. Pursh, as does 

 also Nuttall, cites A, nutans of Frazer's Catalogue as a synonym. 

 That Pursh' s plant is also the A. cermta of Nuttall is evident not 

 only in the substantial agreement of the descriptions in regards to 

 habit, branching and flowers, but the type localities is evidently 

 nearly the same. That the species now proposed is distinct from 

 the varieties given in T. & G. Fl. 416 is evident from the char- 

 acterizations ; those varieties are rather forms of the original of 

 A. dracunculoides. This fact also disposes of A. Nnttalliana Bess. 

 in Hook. Fl. Bor. Am., as that seems to be equivalent to variety 

 brevifolia of the T. & G. Fl. which is there characterized by the 

 shorter, more freely cleft leaves). A. inodora Hook. & Arn. Bot. 

 Beechy is not known to me, but it would seem probable that it is 

 distinct from all the before mentioned. The fact that Pursh does 

 not mention the odor and that Nuttall says " neither aromatic nor 

 agreeably scented " puts A. dracunculoides in sharp contrast with 

 A. aromatica. This Rocky Mountain plant is, as stated before, 

 strongly (in some plants almost overpoweringly) aromatic scented. 

 This is apparent even in dried specimens but of course becomes 



