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Artemisia stellerana (Bessr) Sagewort

NOMENCLATURE

FAMILY : Compositae. Artemisia : see A. vulgaris.

stellerana : star like with spreading rays, stelItate.

Sagewort : from sauge, from old french sauljie, from latin salvia : plant of good health.

PREVIOUS NAMES : A. ludoviciana (Hort).

OTHER NAMES : dusty miller : mealy leaves recall the sight of a miller, white from head to foot with flour.
Old woman : from hoary leaves. Beech wormwood, hoary mugwort.

BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION

TYPE : perennial, non aromatic herb withy creeping woody stock & densley white felted stem, 30-60cm. LEAVES : pinnate or pinnatifid, uppermost >or< entire, the lobes broad, blunt, densely white felted above & below. FLOWERS : heads 5-9mm diam., broadly campanulate, somewhat longer than broad, numerous, in a racemose panicle. Bracts oblong to ovate, densley felted. Receptacle glabrous. Marginal flowers female, central hermaphrodite, all yellow, fertile. Wind Pollinated. Fl. 7-9.

HABITAT : garden plant, waste ground.

DISTRIBUTION : occasional escape, established in Corwall, Devon, Hants, S.W. Scotland, near Dublin.
N.E. Asia. Atlantic coast of N. America from Massachusetts to Delware. Kamchatka. ia