''Artemisia papposa'' is a

species In biology, a species is the basic unit of classification and a taxonomic rank of an organism, as well as a unit of biodiversity. A species is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate s ...

of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names Owyhee sage, Owyhee sagebrush, and fuzzy sagebrush. It is native to the Snake River Plain and surrounding areas in the northwestern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, occurring in southern

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...

, eastern

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, and northern

Nevada Nevada ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, Western region of the United States. It is bordered by Oregon to the northwest, Idaho to the northeast, California to the west, Arizona to the southeast, and Utah to the east. N ...

.''Artemisia papposa''.
The Nature Conservancy. This small aromatic

shrub A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...

grows up to 15 or 20 centimeters tall with several grayish stems. The small gray-green leaves are usually lobed. The

inflorescence An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches. Morphologically, it is the modified part of the shoot of seed plants where flowers are formed o ...

is an array of several flower heads containing yellow ray and disc florets. The fruit is an

achene An achene (; ), also sometimes called akene and occasionally achenium or achenocarp, is a type of simple dry fruit produced by many species of flowering plants. Achenes are monocarpellate (formed from one carpel) and indehiscent (they do not ope ...

. Unlike those of most other ''

Artemisia Artemisia may refer to: People * Artemisia I of Caria (fl. 480 BC), queen of Halicarnassus under the First Persian Empire, naval commander during the second Persian invasion of Greece * Artemisia II of Caria (died 350 BC), queen of Caria under th ...

'', the achenes of this species are topped with

pappi In Asteraceae, the pappus is the modified calyx, the part of an individual floret, that surrounds the base of the corolla tube in flower. It functions as a wind-dispersal mechanism for the seeds. The term is sometimes used for similar s ...

.''Artemisia papposa''.
Flora of North America.Blake, Sydney Fay & Cronquist, Arthur John 1950. Leaflets of Western Botany 6(2): Plate 1, figures 1-3
line drawings of ''Artemisia papposa'' ''Artemisia papposa'' grows on

sagebrush steppe Sagebrush steppe is a type of shrub-steppe, a plant community characterized by the presence of shrubs, and usually dominated by sagebrush, any of several species in the genus '' Artemisia''.alkali flat A dry lake bed, also known as a playa, is a basin or depression that formerly contained a standing surface water body, which disappears when evaporation processes exceeds recharge. If the floor of a dry lake is covered by deposits of alkaline c ...

s, and sagebrush-juniper associations. It grows alongside plants such as

thymeleaf Thymeleaf is a Java XML/XHTML/HTML5 template engine that can work both in web (servlet-based) and non-web environments. It is better suited for serving XHTML/HTML5 at the view layer of MVC-based web applications, but it can process any XML file e ...

and mat buckwheats (''Eriogonum thymoides'' and ''E. caespitosum'', respectively), lava aster (''Ionactis alpina''), whip pussytoes (''Antennaria flagellaris''), onespike danthonia (''Danthonia unispicata''), western needlegrass (''Achnatherum occidentale'' ssp. ''occidentale''), barestem biscuitroot (''Lomatium nudicaule''), and Sandberg bluegrass (''Poa secunda''). It occurs in mid-elevation habitat, often in shallow, rocky, poorly drained soils.Meyer, Rachelle. 2009
''Artemisia papposa''.
In: Fire Effects Information System, nline U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q604711 papposa Flora of the Northwestern United States Plants described in 1950 Taxa named by Arthur Cronquist