Artemisia chitralensis Podlech in Rech. f., Fl. Iran. 158: 198. tt. 186, 220. 1986.

Perennial, suffrutescent, densely arachnoid hairy to almost glabrous, with 40 – 50 cm high, branched above, erect to ascending, sterile and floral stems from woody, 1 – 1.5 cm thick, upright rootstock. Leaves slightly to densely arachnoid hairy, eventually glabrescent or glabrous, inconspicuously punctate glandulose, not deciduous at flowering stage; basal long-petioled, lamina broadly triangular-ovate to almost orbiculate, 2.5 – 3.5 x 2 – 3.5 cm, tripinnatisect into narrowly linear or filiform, ± semicylindric, 2 – 7 x 0.2 – 0.4 mm, stiff, acute ultimate segments; middle and upper stem leaves short petioled or subsessile, basally auricled, gradually smaller upwards; uppermost in floral region trifid or linear, entire. Capitula homogamous, sessile, erect, ovate, 3 – 4 mm long, densely congested into ± globose, more or less approximate at branch tips of narrow, c. 2 – 2.5 cm wide panicle with short or c. 8 cm long, appressed-erect or ± patent-erect branches. Involucre 5 – 6-seriate, phyllaries imbricate, hardly puberulous; outermost very small, green; inner ones oblong, widely scarious-hyaline on margins. Flowers bisexual, c. 5, all fertile.

Fl. Per.: September.

Holotype: Chitral: Utak An, W. Chitral, 2700 m, 9.9.1956, J. D. A. Stainton 3235 (W) Isotype (BM).

Distribution: Endemic to Pakistan and N. E. Afghanistan.

Represented by the type material; the author has not seen any other material from the flora area.