157 ARTEMISIA PAUCIFLORA 



and gradually narrowed to the base with 5 short triangular 

 segments, the tube dotted externally with glands ; stamens with 

 a long terminal apiculus, pointed but not tailed at the base ; 

 style with 2 short thick branches, wider upwards and brush-like 

 at the ends. 



Habitat. This kind of wormwood grows in the desert plains 

 or steppes of several parts of Russia, especially in the districts 

 near the lower part of the course of the great rivers Volga and 

 Don, as the neighbourhood of Sarepta, and much further to the 

 east, in the Kirghiz desert of Russian Turkestan, where it is very 

 abundant, and its flower-heads are largely collected for com- 

 merce ; it doubtless also occurs in intermediate localities. 



In all the specimens of typical A. pauciflora examined the 

 flowers are in bud or rudimentary. The flowers above described 

 are those of a plant in Pallas' s herbarium in the British Museum 

 (labelled " A. Contra "), which slightly differs from the plant 

 figured and furnishing the rest of the description in having the 

 heads a little larger and the involucral scales slightly spathulate. 

 The identification of the drug wormseed with this plant is due 

 to Besser, who states that it was then (1834) collected about 

 Sarepta for the druggists. A careful comparison of the com- 

 mercial heads and those of the present plant has convinced us 

 that they are identical, and there can be little doubt that, as 

 stated by the authors of " Pharmacographia," at least the chief 

 part of the drug is furnished by it. 



With regard to other alleged sources. The A. santonica of 

 Woodville, t. 25 (figured from a plant then in cultivation under 

 that name at Kew), has heads which bear no resemblance to the 

 drug. A. Vahliana, Kostel., which had long been considered by 

 German botanists as the source of the wormseed of trade, is 

 figured in Berg and Sch., t. 29 c, to show how unlike it is to 

 the drug itself, specimens of which are drawn on the same plate 

 for comparison, and bear the name of A. Cina. As this name of 

 Berg's was bestowed in advance on an (to him) unknown plant, 

 it has no real claim to be used scientifically. Willkomm, 

 however, in 1872 maintained the name for a plant which he fully 



