Roman wormwood, green-ginger, armoise de la mer Noire

Perennials, 40–100 cm, somewhat aromatic; rhizomes creeping, woody. Stems relatively numerous, erect, brown, mostly simple (brittle, bases woody) canescent or glabrate. Leaves cauline, grayish green; sessile (proximalmost short-petiolate); blades triangular to ovate, 1–5 × 1–3 cm, 2–3-pinnatifid (lobes 0.5–1 mm wide, acute), faces pubescent (abaxial) or hairy to glabrate (adaxial). Heads (nodding) in paniculiform arrays 10–22 × 2–4 cm. Involucres spheric, 1.5–2(–3) mm. Phyllaries (subequal) linear, hairy. Florets: pistillate 10–12; bisexual 40–45; corollas pale yellow, 0.2–0.3 mm, sometimes gland-dotted (stigma lobes relatively short, not emerging from tubes, short-ciliate). Cypselae ellipsoid (angled), 0.1–0.2 mm, glabrous. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer–fall. Disturbed areas, valleys, shaded thickets; 100–500 m; introduced; Man., N.S., Ont., Que.; Conn., Del., Ill., Ky., Maine, Md., Mass., Mich., Minn., N.H., N.J., N.Y., Ohio, Pa., R.I., Vt., Wis.; Eurasia.

Artemisia pontica has finely dissected gray foliage and is widely planted as an ornamental. It escapes locally; it has not been reported as problematic. The only species with which it has been confused in North America is A. abrotanum, which has dark green (not gray) foliage.