Vern.: Surkh Jir.

Artemisia turanica H.Krasch., Otcet. Rabotch. Pccv.-Bot. Otrjada kazakhst. Exsped. Akad. Nauk. SSSR 4 (2): 270. 1930; Poljakov in Schischk. & Bobrov, Fl. USSR 26: 612. 1961; Podlech in Rech. f., Fl. Iran. Comp. IV. 158: 199. t. 188. 1986; S. M. Goodman & Ghafoor in Fieldiana: Bot. New Ser. 31: 47. 1992; A. lamprocaulos Rech. f. in Ann. Nat. Mus. Wien 55: 6. 1944.

A low basally suffrutescent shrublet with numerous, erect to ascending, brittle, 25-40 cm tall, arachnoid-hairy to ultimately glabrous at anthesis, dark shining violaceous-brown vegetative and flowering shoots from c. 1.5 cm thick, woody, upright rootstock. Basal and lower leaves with 4 – 6 mm long petioles, auriculate; lamina rotundate, 10 – 20 mm long and broad,, canescent to glabrescent, bipinnatisect into linear to narrowly oblanceolate, 3 – 5 x. 0.5 mm, ± obtuse ultimate segments; median and upper leaves ± sessile, c. 3 – 6 mm long, auriculate; uppermost in the floral region much reduced, trifid to entire, all leaves soon deciduous. Capitula heterogamous, erect, sessile, remote, narrowly ovate or oblong, c. 2 – 3 x 1.5 mm, in wide lax twice branched panicle with 5 – 10 (-14) cm long, obliquely ascending or ± patent, flexuose primary branches, secondary branches 2 – 4 cm long. Involucre 5-7-seriate, phyllaries compactly imbricate, outer deeply keeled, c. 1 mm long, densely hairy or sometimes glabrescent, inner oblong, with broad scarious margins. Florets 3 – 5, yellow.

Fl. Per.: July-September.

Type: Described from Central Kazakhstan, Artemisia steppe in Orta-Kachun Valley, 8.6.1914, Krascheninikov 5251 (LE).

In waste fields with sandy and gravelly alluvial loamy deposits and clay mixed with pebbles; Distribution: Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Soviet Union (Karakum, Aralo-Caspia, Balkh, Amu Darya, and Syr Darya foothills and Pamir Alai).

It is medicinally used to relieve various types of fevers and skin rashes associated with extreme heat. Stomach pain in children, under seven years of age, is treated by applying its paste in oil over the belly for 12 hours.