Spbaeromeria argentea Nutt. 

 Chicken sage 



A. DESCRIPTION 



1. General description: Commonly called a false sagebrush, 

 this member of the Asteraceae (sunflower family) resembles 

 some species of Artemisia due to its fragrance, three parted 

 leaves, and small heads of flowers. Plants are often somewhat 

 woody near the base. The leaves are mostly basal and the 

 heads of yellow tubular flowers are borne on short pedicels in 

 loose terminal clusters. 



2. Technical species description (for Tanacetum nuttallii , a 

 synonym, quoted from Cronquist 1955) : 



Aromatic perennial with many slender stems 0.5-2 dm. 

 tall, often slightly woody at base, fibrous-rooted, or 

 with a short, deliquescently branched taproot; herbage 

 closely gray-tomentose; leaves appearing clustered at the 

 base because of the numerous short sterile shoots, mostly 

 cuneate and 3-toothed or -lobed at the apex, sometimes 4- 

 to 5-lobed or entire, up to about 1.5 cm long including 

 the slender base; heads several, mostly short-pedunculate 

 in a subcapitate cluster, small, the involucre only 3-4 

 mm high, the disk 4-7 mm wide; receptacle glabrous, 

 strongly convex; pappus essentially wanting. 



3. Diagnostic characters: The genus Spbaeromeria is 

 distinguished from lowland species of Artemisia by the 

 arrangement of its flower heads in capitate clusters vs. 

 racemes or panicles. S. argentea differs from S. capitata by 

 having leaves which are merely toothed or shallowly lobed 

 rather than deeply lobed and flower heads borne on pedicels in 

 loose clusters rather than sessile in dense clusters. 



B. GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION 



1. Species range: "...central Idaho and adjacent Montana to 

 Wyoming; Nevada (Hitchcock and Cronquist 1973)." 



2. Montana distribution: Beaverhead County, previously known 

 from two sites in the vicinity of the town of Dell, and near 

 Matador Ranch. 



3. Occurrences in the study area: One population was found on 

 State land about 2 miles south of the confluence of Big Sheep 

 and Meadow Creeks in the southern part of the Tendoys. 



C. HABITAT 



The population in the southern Tendoys occurs in seasonally 

 moist clay soil on an alluvial terrace. The unusual plant 

 community is dominated by Artemisia arbuscula, Sarcobatus 

 vermiculatus , and Poa nevadensis . Other associates at the 



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