Saltwort Wormwood

Perennial, glabrous or very occasionally sparse hairy, basally woody shrublet with several, upright, 20-40 (-50) cm tall, greenish-yellow, shiny, sulcate stems from woody, stout, prostrate rootstock. Leaves almost sessile, glabrous, glaucous, 3-6 cm long, 2-3-pinnatisect into linear-oblong, 8-12 x 1-2 mm, obtuse segments; middle cauline leaves palmatisect into 3, 1-2 cm long, ± acute segments; uppermost in the floral region undivided, linear-oblong, acute. Capitulae heterogamous, subsessile to short peduncled, broadly ovoid-subglobose, 3-4 x 3-3.5 mm, remote in 15-25 x 5-10 cm , well branched panicle with 6-10 cm long, ascending branches. Involucre 4-5-seriate; phyllaries glabrous-glaucous, outermost 2 series ovate, c. 1.25 x 0.75 mm, green with narrow membranous margins, acute; middle broadly ovate, c. 2 x 1 mm, ± obtuse; inner ones subequal, narrowly obovate, 2.5-2.75 x c. 1 mm, with wide scarious - hyaline margins, obtuse. Receptacle hemispherical, glabrous. Florets yellow, 15-20; marginal florets 5-6, fertile with c. 1 mm long, narrowly tubular, glandulose, 2-dentate corolla; disc-florets 10-14, sterile, with c. 1.75 mm long, 5-toothed, tubular, glandulose corolla. Cypselas dark brown, c. 1.2 mm long, finely striate, with terminal corolliform scar.

Distribution: Soviet Union (Eastern part; western Siberia, S. Ukraine and Caucasus), Pakistan (Baltistan, Kashmir) and China (Xizang).

Fl. Per.: July-September.