Kansas Wildflowers and Grasses

SILKY WORMWOOD

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Artemisia dracunculus L.

Saline County, Kansas

Perennial

Height: 20-60 inches

Family: Asteraceae - Sunflower Family

Flowering Period: August, September

Also Called:

Tarragon.

Stems:

Erect, simple or branched, mostly glabrous.

Leaves:

Mostly cauline, alternate; blade linear to linear-lanceolate, .8 to 3 inches long, .04 to .25 inch wide, margins entire or irregularly 3-5-lobed, surfaces glabrous.

Inflorescences:

Heads discoid, in panicle-like arrays 4 to 20 inches.

Flowers:

Involucres globose, .08 to .12 inch wide. Phyllaries 5-20 in 2-3 series, lanceolate, glabrous. Receptacles convex to conic. Ray florets 0. Disk florets 10--50, not all fertile; peripheral florets 6-25, pistillate; central florets 8-20, staminate; corolla yellow, .05 to .08 inch.

Fruits:

Achenes tan to grayish brown, fusiform, minute, usually glabrous; pappus absent.

Habitat:

Sandy to gravelly mixed-grass and shortgrass prairies.

Distribution:

Principally west 1/2 of Kansas

Origin:

Native

Uses:

The leaves are used as the cooking herb tarragon. Native Americans took a tea of the roots for colds, dysentery and infant colic; applied the dried, powdered foliage to open sores; burned the plant to repel mosquitoes; and used the seeds for food.

Comments:

For Artemis, Greek goddess of hunting, wilderness, and wild animals.

Silky wormwood