A. CALIFORNICA. 53 



3. ARTEMISIA CALIFORNICA Lessing, Linnaea 6 : 523, 1831. Plate 2. Coast 



Sagebrush. 

 A rounded shrub with a definite woody trunk, 5 to 15 or rarely 25 dm. high, with a 

 strong pungent odor; stems several or numerous, freely branched, the older parts with 

 a brown fibrous bark, the twigs mostly erect, stout, striate, gray or nearly white with a 

 close canescent pubescence; principal leaves sessile or at least with no distinction between 

 blade and petiole, 2 to 5 or rarely 10 cm. long, 0.5 to 1 mm. wide below the lobes or 1 to 

 3 mm. wide in insular forms, ternately or pinnately or rarely bipinnately divided into 

 long segments not wider than the rachis, commonly with fascicled ones in their axils, 

 minutely but densely cinereous or canescent; upper and fascicled leaves gradually 

 reduced in size upwards, less divided or entire, pubescent like the lower; inflorescence 

 racemose-paniculate, leafy-bracteate throughout, 10 to 30 cm. long, 1 to 10 cm. broad; 

 heads heterogamous, peduncled, nodding; involucre hemispheric, 2.5 to 4 mm. high, 3 to 

 5 mm. broad; bracts 12 to 20, the outer ones short, thick, and herbaceous, the inner ones 

 with thick backs and broad scarious margins, oblong or rhomboidal, obtuse, all canescent 

 on the exposed parts; receptacle conic, glabrous (or barely pubescent); ray-flowers 6 to 

 10, or up to 15 in in.sular forms, corolla tubular, nearly regular, about 4-toothed, 1 mm. 

 long; disk-flowers 15 to 30, or 30 to 40 in insular forms, corolla campanulate, 5-toothed, 

 1.5 to 2 mm. long, glandular-granuliferous; style of ray-flowers 2-cleft, well exserted, of 

 disk-flowers 2-cIeft, barely exserted, the branches truncate; achenes of both ray- and 

 disk-flowers oblong-turbinate, broad and truncate at summit, with a slightly raised, often 

 undulate rim, 5-angled, resinous-granuliferous. 



Abundant on exposed slopes of low hills and ranges in Cahfornia from the north 

 side of San Francisco Bay and Mount Diablo to San Pedro Martir in Lower California; 

 also on the adjacent islands and east in southern California to the borders of the Colorado 

 Desert. Type locality, California. Collections (all in California and Lower California) : 

 Hills just east of Vallejo, north side of San Pablo Bay, Hall; Mare Island, north side of 

 San Francisco Bay, September 22, 1874, Greene (Gr); type collection, San Francisco, 

 Chamisso (Gr); San Antonio Canon, Black Mountain, Santa Cruz Mountains, Abrams 8 

 (US, minor variation 4, A.foliosa Nuttall); Pacific Grove, Heller 7198 (DS, Gr, NY, UC, 

 US); near Santa Barbara, Eastwood IJ^5 (Gr, NY, UC, US); Avalon, Santa Catalina 

 Island, January 1901, Trask (NY, US, minor variation 4, A.foliosa Nuttall); Pot's Trail, 

 San Clemente Island, Trask 286 (NY, US, type collection of Crossostephium insulare 

 Rydberg, minor variation 7); San Nicholas Island, Trask 71 silvery and 71a dun-colored 

 (NY, US, same variation); Cabezon, westerly edge of Colorado Desert, October 15, 

 1904, and October 24, 1907, Bailey (UC, minor variation 4, A. foliosa Nuttall); Las 

 Huevitas, near San Rosario, Lower California, May 1889, Brandegee (UC); Guadalupe 

 Island, Franceschi 11 (UC). 



MINOR VARIATIONS AND SYNONYMS. 

 This species is fairly constant in its botanical characters, due in part to an almost continuous distribution 

 throughout its range and perhaps also to its isolation phylogenetically from its nearest allies. The only varia- 

 tion of more than passing interest is No. 7 of the following list. 



1. Artemisi.^ abrotanoides Nuttall, Trans. Am. Phil. Soc. II. 7 ; 399, 1841. Described from specimens 

 collected near Santa Barbara with no reference to the earlier californica, for which it is an exact synonym. 



2. A. FiscHERiANA Besscr, Nouv. Mem. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 3 : 21, 1834. Same as .4. californica. Type 

 locality, San Francisco Bay. 



3. A. FISCHERIANA VEGETIOR Besser, 1. c. 88, is A. californica. 



4. A. FouosA Nuttall, 1. c. 397. Recently revived by Rydberg, who separates it on the basis of its silvery- 

 white pubescence and the mostly ternately cleft leaves with very narrow segments. These distinctions are 

 impossible to apply in the field because of the presence of all grades of pubescence and type of leaf, often on the 

 same or closely neighboring plants. Dwarfed individuals in which the leaves are shortened and the inflores- 

 cence reduced are most likely to exhibit the characters of folima. While the twigs and foliage grade insensibly 

 in color from the common gray type to the silvery- white ol foliosa in the coastal districts, according to Vernon 

 Bailey these two color-forms grow together at Cabezon, on the edge of the Colorado Desert, and intermedial e 



