Artemisia roxburghiana Wallich ex Bess. in Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 9: 57. 1836; Hook.f., Fl. Brit. India 3: 326. 1881.

Herbs, perennial; rhizome horizontal, creeping; stems brown purple more or less, robust, ca 1 m high, simple, grooved, more or less minutely pubescent or gradually more tomentose. Leaves ca 6 cm long, 2-pinnatifid, rachis narrow, more or less minutely pubescent or consistently silky, grey white or white woolly beneath; lower leaves oblong, long petioled; oblong, middle and upper ovate, sessile, segments small, ovate-lanceolate acute, cuspidate or mucronate, margins revolute or not, pubescent above, densely hoary or white tomentose beneath. Heads subsessile or shortly pedicelled, more or less minutely cobwebby tomentose or densely woolly in elongate, pyramidal narrow panicles, campanulate or subglobose, 3 - 4 mm in diam. Involucral bracts 2 - 3-seriate, pubescent or tomentose, ovate or narrowly to broadly oblong with broad scarious margins. Receptacle small, flat, naked. Outer florets female, fertile; corolla narrowly tubular, obscurely 3-fid. Disc florets hermaphrodite, fertile, tubular, glandular with short tube. Achenes not seen.

KEY TO THE VARIETIES

1a. Leaves minutely pubescent on both surfaces; segments small, ovate

23.4. roxburghiana

b. Leaves consistently silky white or white woolly beneath; segments ovate, acuminate or mucronate or linear or linear-lanceolate

2

2a. Leaf segments small, secund, ovate-lanceolate; florets not purple in dried state

23.2. hypoleuca

b. Leaf segments elongate, narrowly linear or linear-lanceolate; florets evidently purple in dried state

3

3a. Segments glabrous above, white or hoary tomentose beneath; margins not revolute

23.1. acutiloba

b. Segments sparsely adpressed pubescent or glabrescent above, densely tomentose beneath; margins strongly revolute

23.3. purpurascens

List of Lower Taxa