Artemisia douglasiana

Mugwort, Mugwort

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Mugwort is a California native perennial herb found in the California Floristic Province, Modoc Plateau, and northern Sierra Nevada Eastern regions in open to shady areas, often near drainages, at elevations up to 2,200 meters. Flowering from May to November, this plant produces small bell-shaped flower heads in pale green to grayish clusters, typically 2 to 4 millimeters in diameter. Growing with multiple erect stems 50 to 250 centimeters tall, the plant emerges from a spreading rhizome and displays brown to gray-green stems covered in soft woolly hairs. Its leaves are distinctively arranged along the stem, ranging 1 to 11 centimeters long, with narrowly elliptic to widely oblanceolate shapes that are entire or have 3 to 5 lobes near the tip, appearing sparsely hairy on top and densely white-woolly underneath. The plant forms intricate leafy panicle-like clusters with erect to slightly nodding flower heads, each containing 5 to 9 pistillate flowers and 6 to 25 disk flowers.

Habitat: Common. Open to shady areas, often in drainages

Bloom period: May-Nov

Elevation: < 2200 m

Bioregions: CA-FP, MP, n SNE

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.