Seriphidium stenocephalum (Krasch. ex Poljakov) Poljakov

Grazed by sheep and cattle. It is used as a purgative to get rid of worms especially in children.

A small basally woody shrublet, with erect, several or sometimes solitary, grey hairy to glabrescent, faintly brownish, 40 – 60 cm tall stem from woody, vertical rootstock. Basal and lower stem leaves with 5 – 10 mm long petiole, whitish tomentose to ultimately glabrous, 10 – 15 x 8 – 12 mm, bipinnatisect into linear-oblong, 1 – 3 (-5) mm long, obtuse ultimate segments; median and upper stem leaves subsessile to sessile, basally auriculate; uppermost in floral region sessile, entire, linear, 1.5 – 3 mm long, all leaves soon deciduous. Capitula homogamous, sessile, remote to approximate, erect, narrowly oblong, 3 – 4 x c. 1.5 mm, in a large, broadly pyramidate panicle with up to 30 cm long, oblique patent lower brances, bearing 4 – 6 cm long secondary branches. Involucre 5 – 6-seriate, phyllaries compactly imbricate, all ± flat, glabrous, outermost broadly obovate, c. 1 x 0.75 mm, inner most oblanceolate, c. 2.5 x 0.5 mm, obtuse. Receptacle conical. Florets 3 – 4, yellow, with c. 2 mm long tubular corolla. Cypselas c. 1 mm long.

Distribution: Afghanistan and Pakistan (Baluchistan).

Fl. Per.: September-October.

Rare in our area in gravelly dry river banks with coarse sand mixed clay soils.

Artemisia stenocephala H. Krasch., ex Poljakov in Not. Syst. Leningrad 16: 404. 1954; Ibid, in Fl. Turkm. 7: 126. 1960; Kitam., Fl. Afghan. 391. 1960; Podlech in Rech. f., Fl. Iran. 158: 209. tt. 200, 221. 1986.