Patterson sagewort

Artemisia monocephala (A. Gray) A. Heller; A. scopulorum A. Gray var. monocephala A. Gray

Perennials, 8–20 cm, mildly aromatic. Stems gray-brown, glabrate or finely pubescent. Leaves deciduous, gray-green; petiolate; blades (basal) broadly spatulate, 2–4 × 0.5 cm, pinnately lobed (lobes ca. 1.5 mm wide; cauline smaller, 1-pinnately lobed or entire), faces silky-hairy. Heads borne singly or (2–5, spreading to nodding, pedunculate) in paniculiform or racemiform arrays 1–5 × 0.5–1 cm. Involucres broadly hemispheric, 5–8 × 5–8(–10) mm. Phyllaries gray (margins dark brown to black), villous. Florets: pistillate 7–27; bisexual 32–100; corollas (yellow tinged with red), 2–3 mm (including exsert anthers), mostly glabrous (embedded in tangled receptacular hairs). Cypselae 1.5–2 mm, glabrous. 2n = 14.

Flowering mid–late summer. Alpine meadows; 3500–4000 m; Colo., N.Mex., Wyo.

Artemisia pattersonii can be distinguished from the closely related A. scopulorum by its heads being borne singly and narrower phyllary margins.