404 COMPOSITE. Artemisia. 



late, tapering and acute : heads numerous, spicately clustered in a leafy panicle, 

 ovoid or globular, loosely woolly-canescent or becoming glabrous. The typical 

 forms are common throughout the northern portion of the Old World, especially in 

 Asia. 



Var. Californica, Besser. Stems commonly simple and tall : leaves sparingly 

 pinnatifid, 3 - 5-parted, and the upper merely toothed or entire. A. heterophylla, 

 Nutt., &c. 



Dry soil, not rare near the coast from San Francisco northward (a very large form at Shelter 

 Cove, Humboldt Co. , Bolander) : also in the Sierra Nevada. A very widely spread and most 

 variable species, into which both the following appear to pass by transitions. 



4. A. discolor, Dougl. Low and slender, a foot high : leaves green and gla- 

 brous above, finely cottony-tomentose beneath, nearly all once or twice pinnately 

 parted into narrow linear lobes : heads smaller, spicately clustered in a narrow and 

 rather naked raceme-like panicle, globular, nearly glabrous. 



Sierra Nevada at Ebbett's Pass, &c. , Brewer, Thence northward and eastward to the Cascade 

 and the Rocky Mountains. Exactly the A. discolor has not been met with in California. The 

 specimens are between it and some forms of the preceding, and, with the Nevada plant of King's 

 Expedition, varying to A. incompta, Nutt. 



5. A. Ludoviciana, Nutt. From one to three feet high, cottony-tomentose 

 throughout : leaves oblong, lanceolate, or linear-lanceolate, entire, sparingly toothed, 

 or some of the lower occasionally 3 5-cleft, the upper surfaces ometimes losing its 

 wool ; heads very numerous and spicately clustered in a narrow and usually dense 

 panicle, ovoid or globular, small. 



Dry open grounds, Monterey and elsewhere in the western part of the State (with broad and 

 entire leaves, Hartweg, Rattan, &c.) : more common, in narrow-leaved forms, on the eastern slope 

 of the Sierra Nevada, thence abundant to and much beyond the Rocky Mountains. 



2. Flowers heterogamous, as in the preceding section, but only the pistillate flowers 

 at the margin fertile ; the ovary of the otherwise perfect flowers abortive, their 

 style mostly undivided and tufted at the apex. DRACUNCULUS, Besser. 



-t- Fertile akenes and corollas glabrous : stems herbaceous or barely woody at base. 



6. A. dracunculoides, Pursh. Green and glabrous, or a little pubescent 

 when young, branching, 2 to 4 feet high, in tufts : leaves linear, entire, some of the 

 lower rarely 3-cleft : heads small and very numerous in an ample compound leafy 

 panicle, mostly pedicelled. 



Common in the Sierra Nevada, also found westward (banks of San Leandro Creek, Bolander ; 

 Fort Tejon, Dr. Horn) ; and through Nevada and Oregon to beyond the Mississippi. Heads 

 only a line or so in diameter, glabrous. The herbage is destitute of the sharp odor and taste of 

 A. Dracunculus. 



7. A. pycnocephala, DC. Densely silky-villous all over : stems mostly sim- 

 ple, a foot or two high, somewhat woody at base : leaves once to thrice pinnately 

 parted into rather few and crowded chiefly linear lobes : heads numerous, spicately 

 clustered in a dense virgate panicle. Also A. pachystachya, DC. 



Sand hills along the coast from Monterey to Humboldt Co. Heads fully 2 lines in diameter : 

 involucre very villous. 



+ +- Fertile akenes and the corollas villous with long crisped hairs : stems woody. 



(Picrothamnus, Nutt.) 



8. A. spinescens, D. C. Eaton. A span to a foot or so high, with stout and 

 spreading rigid branches, bearing sharp spines, villous-tomentose : leaves small, 

 petioled, pedately once or twice parted into linear-spatulate or oblong lobes : heads 

 rather few and loosely racemose or spicate on a persistent spinescent rhachis : scales 

 of the involucre few (5 or 6), round-obovate, herbaceous with scarious margins. 

 Bot. King Exp. 180, t. 19. Picrothamnus desertorum, Nutt. 



