''Artemisia pedatifida'' is a species of flowering plant in the aster family known by the common names birdfoot sagebrush and matted sagewort. It is native to a section of the west-central United States encompassing parts of

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 ...

Montana Montana () is a state in the Mountain West division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North Dakota and South Dakota to the east, Wyoming to the south, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbi ...

Wyoming Wyoming () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It is bordered by Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the south ...

and

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, where it occurs on the high plains.Taylor, Jane E. 2006
''Artemisia pedatifida''.
In: Fire Effects Information System, nline U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory. This plant is a perennial herb or small

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or dwarf shrub is a short shrub, and is a woody plant. Prostrate shrub is a related term. "Subshrub" is often used interchangeably with "bush".Jackson, Benjamin, Daydon; A Glossary of Botanic Terms with their Der ...

growing up to about 15 centimeters tall. There are several stems growing from a woody base atop a woody root. The small, gray-green leaves occur in a tuft around the woody base. 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 ...

contains a number of round

flower heads A pseudanthium (Greek for "false flower"; ) is an inflorescence that resembles a flower. The word is sometimes used for other structures that are neither a true flower nor a true inflorescence. Examples of pseudanthia include flower heads, compos ...

which each have a few

pistillate Gynoecium (; ) is most commonly used as a collective term for the parts of a flower that produce ovules and ultimately develop into the fruit and seeds. The gynoecium is the innermost whorl of a flower; it consists of (one or more) ''pistils'' ...

ray florets and a few disc florets. The plant reproduces by seed.''Artemisia pedatifida''.
Flora of North America. This sagebrush grows on

grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes, like clover, and other herbs. Grasslands occur natur ...

s and shrublands in mountains and on plains. It grows with many types of grasses and a few shrubs such as Gardner's saltbush (''Atriplex gardneri'') and

winterfat ''Krascheninnikovia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the subfamily Chenopodioideae of the family Amaranthaceae known as winterfat, so-called because it is a nutritious livestock forage. They are known from Eurasia and western North America. Th ...

(''Krascheninnikovia lanata'').

References

External links

The Nature Conservancy
{{Taxonbar, from=Q609719 pedatifida Plants described in 1841 Flora of the Western United States