Tarragon

Artemisia dracunculus is widely cultivated as a culinary herb and may be introduced in parts of its range. It is easily cultivated from rootstocks, and while establishment from seeds is rare, seedlings can be found with amenable environmental conditions. Because of its popularity as an herb, it may suffer from overcollecting. Its scarcity in Missouri, Iowa, and Illinois (J. T. Kartesz and C. A. Meacham 1999) may have been caused by overly enthusiastic collecting as well as habitat loss.

Perennials or subshrubs, 50–120(–150) cm, strongly tarragon-scented or not aromatic; rhizomatous, caudices coarse. Stems relatively numerous, erect, green to brown or reddish brown, somewhat woody, glabrous. Leaves: proximal blades bright green and glabrous or gray-green and sparsely hairy, 5–8 cm; cauline blades bright green (gray-green in desert forms), linear, lanceolate, or oblong, 1–7 × 0.1–0.5(–0.9) cm, mostly entire, sometimes irregularly lobed, acute, usually glabrous, sometimes glabrescent (deserts). Heads in terminal or lateral, leafy, paniculiform arrays 15–45 × 6–30 cm; appearing ball-like on slender, sometimes nodding peduncles. Involucres globose, 2–3 × 2–3.5(–6) mm. Phyllaries (light brown, broadly lanceolate, membranous): margins broadly hyaline, glabrous. Florets: pistillate 6–25; functionally staminate 8–20; corollas pale yellow, 1.8–2 mm, eglandular or sparsely glandular. Cypselae oblong, 0.5–0.8 mm, faintly nerved, glabrous. 2. = 18.

Perennial, strongly aromatic to inodorous, 20-100 (-150) cm tall herb, with erect or ascending, costate-striate, greenish-yellow, sparsely hairy to glabrous stems. Leaves short stalked to sessile, mostly undivided, occasionally lower 3-5-cleft, usually glabrous, sometimes sparsely appressed canescent, linear-lanceolate to occasionally ± oblanceolate, 2-8 cm x (1-) 2-8 (-10) mm, entire, acute; upper ones mostly simple, much reduced in floral region. Capitula numerous, heterogamous, globose, 2-3 x 3-4 mm, remote to approximate, nodding on curved, 1-2 mm long, hairy or glabrous peduncles, in leafy, narrow panicle with ascending to erect, sometimes appressed, up to 10 cm long branches. Involucre 3-seriate, phyllaries glabrous, outermost oblong, c. 2.5 x 1 mm, obtuse, inner ones broadly elliptic, c. 3.5 x 2 mm, broadly whitish scarious, obtuse. Receptacle conico-hemispherical, glabrous. Florets up to 40, yellow; marginal-florets 6-15, fertile, with 0.5-1 mm long, glandulose, 2-fid corolla; disc-florets 10-20, bisexual, sterile, with campanulate, 2-2.5 mm long, 5-toothed corolla. Cypselas brown, ellipsoid, 0.6-1 mm long.

Distribution: Europe eastwards to Siberia, China, Mongolia and North America (probably introduced and naturalized).

Fl. Per.: July-September.

This species is collected for feeding to sheep in Ladakh and Tibet during winter. Cultivated in Europe for leaves which are used for seasoning salads and cooked dishes.

Artemisia aromatica A. Nelson; A. dracunculina S. Watson; A. dracunculoides Pursh; A. dracunculoides subsp. dracunculina (S. Watson) H. M. Hall & Clements; A. glauca Pallas ex Willdenow; A. glauca var. megacephala B. Boivin

A. simplicifolia Pamp., Lav. Ist. Bot. Reale Univ. Cagliari 22: 174. 1934; A. dracunculus var. inodora Bess. in Bull. Soc. Nat. Mosc. 8: 54. 1835; Oligosporus dracunculus (L.) Poljakov, l. c. 11: 166.