Artemisia ludoviciana

Silver wormwood, Silver Wormwood

Family: Asteraceae · Type: perennial · Native

Silver wormwood is a California native perennial herb found in various western bioregions in dry, open habitats at elevations ranging from low to moderate terrain. Flowering from July to September, this plant produces small, subtle flowers in nodding heads less than 7 millimeters wide, arranged in diffuse panicle-like clusters. Growing with multiple stems 20 to 80 centimeters tall, the plant develops a dense gray to white tomentose (woolly) appearance that creates a soft, silvery aesthetic. Its leaves are variable, ranging from linear to elliptic or obovate, measuring 1 to 11 centimeters long and often deeply pinnately lobed, covered in a dense tomentose surface that gives the plant its distinctive silvery-gray coloration. The plant emerges from an underground rhizome, creating multiple stems that contribute to its bushy, spread-out growth pattern.

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