Artemisia stracheyii Hook. f. & Thomson ex C.B.Clarke, Comp. Ind. 164. 1876; Hook. f., Fl. Brit. Ind. 3: 328. 1881; Pamp. in Nuov. Giorn. Bot. Ital. 34: 704. 1927; R.R.Stewart, Ann. Cat.Vasc. Pl. W. Pak. & Kashm. 720. 1972; Tsiang & Li, Icon. Corm. Sin. 4: 536. fig. 6486. 1975; Kaul & B.K.Bakshi in Folia Geobot. Phytotax. (Praha) 19: 310. 1984; B.D.Naithani in Hajra et al., Fl. Ind. 12: 43. 1995.

Silky villose, alpine herb with a few strict, unbranched, 20-30 cm tall, pale-greenish, upright sulcate stems from a very short, stout, 2.5-3.5 cm thick, branched, horizontal to suberect, woody rootstock, covered with old leaf sheaths. Basal and lower stem leaves with 3-5 cm long petiole, lamina narrow oblong, 6-15 x 1.5-2 cm, 2-3-pinnatisect, with alternate primary lobes and linear-oblong, 2.5-5 x 0.5 mm, ± acute ultimate segments; upper leaves in the floral region subtending capitula simple, linear, approximate, 1.5-3 x c. 1 mm, acute. Capitula approximate to remote, broadly hemispherical, 10-12 mm across, nodding on 1-1.5 cm long, slender-filiform peduncles. Phyllaries all more or less flat, brown scarious-margined, outer ovate-elliptic, c. 3.5 x 2 mm, hairy outside, obtuse, with broad, inner elliptic, c. 3 x 2 mm, obtuse. Receptacle flat, ± densely to sparsely scaly. Florets pale-brown, all densely appressed-antrorse scaly all over to glabrescent. Marginal florets much fewer than the discs, with c. 2 mm long, unequally 4-fid corolla beset with scales; ovary as long as corolla, style branches very short. Disc florets more than 100, with c. 3 mm long, densely scaly and glandular, 5-toothed corolla tube; ovary c. 2 mm long, densely scaly; anther appendages short, triangular; style branches with penicillate stigma, included. Achenes c. 2.25 mm long, sparsely scaly, brown, inconspicuously marginate.

Holotype:”In Tibet occidentalis ad 15000-17000 ft.” T. Thomson (K!) Isotype (E!, BM!, L!. CAL!).

Distribution: Northern Himalayas above 15000 ft. (c. 4500 m), Pakistan, Nepal, India, S. China, Xizang, Bhutan.