Artemisia stricta Edgew.

Two forms are recognized by Pampanini (l. c.). Specimens with single erect, upright stems belong to f. genuina Pamp. while those with several diffuse low growing, ± spreading stems have been described as f. diffusa.

Annual or biennial, up to 20 (-30) cm tall herb with slender single or several erect or ascending to procumbent, greenish-yellow, ± patent hairy stems from base. Basal leaves long petioled, petiole to 1.5 cm long, lamina oblong to broadly ovate, 2-pinnatisect, 10-20 (-25) x 6-15 mm, with linear-lanceolate, 2-5 x 0.5-1 mm, acute, remote ultimate segments; upper and middle stem leaves subsessile to sessile, basally auricled, less dissected; uppermost in floral region linear, entire, oblong-pyramidate. Capitula heterogamous, subsessile or short peduncled, ovate, c. 2 x 1.5 mm, erect, in very narrowly pyramidate panicles, with up to 4 cm long, erect or ascending branches, remote or congested towards apices. Involucre 3-seriate, outermost phyllaries narrowly ovate, 1.75-2 x 0.5-1 mm, hairy to glabrescent, narrowly hyaline-scarious on margins; median and inner phyllaries ovate, 2.5 x c. 1 mm, glabrous with broadly scarious margins, acute. Receptacle hemispherical, glabrous, c. 0.5 mm long. Florets 20-25, yellow; ray-florets female, 15-20, with narrowly urceolate-tubular, 2-dentate corolla; disc-florets 4-5, bisexual, functionally staminate, with narrowly clavate-tubular, 5-toothed corolla. Cypselas oblong, 0.6-0.8 mm long, brown.

Himalaya, Tibet, S.W. China (Yunnan).

Distribution: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Pamir, India and China (Xizang).

2100-5000 m

Fl. Per.: August-September.

A. demissa Krasch. in Acta Inst. Bot. Acad. Sci. URSS, ser. 1, 3: 348. 1936; A. edgeworthii Balak. in J. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. 63(2): 329. 1967 nom. Illegit.