Florapass
English
Field Wormwood

Field Wormwood

Artemisia campestris

Identify the Field Wormwood from a photo and log your finds with Florapass.

Coming soon to the App Store and Google Play.

How common: Common

Field Wormwood is a slender, many-stemmed perennial in the wormwood group. It is most often seen on dry, sunny, sandy ground such as dunes, heaths, roadsides and waste places, and it blooms late in summer.

Did you know?

  • The Bothnian subspecies (A. campestris subsp. bottnica) is protected and critically endangered in Finland.
  • Unlike many wormwoods, it usually has no noticeable scent.

About the species

Identification

Perennial with several slender, tough, almost smooth stems from a woody base, 20–80 cm tall, often reddish-brown. Leaves are very finely cut into many thread-like parts; lower leaves have short stalks, upper ones sit on the stem. The narrow leaf parts are slightly fleshy, shiny when older; young leaves may feel silky. Many tiny rounded flower heads make a loose, fairly wide cluster; each head is upright or slightly drooping and yellow-brown to reddish. It usually has no scent. Compared with mugwort, its leaves are much finer and it lacks the strong smell. Flowers in Finland in August–September.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

yards and roadsides, shore

Flowering

Aug–Sep

About the habitat

Open, dry, sandy or gravelly places: heaths, shores and dunes, roadsides and railway embankments, rock crevices and other waste ground. Native and fairly common in the far south; farther north only scattered as a rare newcomer.

Sources

Photo: Agnieszka Kwiecień, Nova, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Artemisia campestris Bylica polna 2020-06-29 05.jpg

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Itämeri: karut rannikkometsät, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39841

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Carex, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39841

Text: Pinkka: A Pohjolan kasveja - Abies-Allium, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39841

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ketomaruna

See also