Bursage mugwort

Biennials or perennials, 30–100 cm, faintly aromatic (rhizomatous). Stems 1–3, erect, reddish brown, simple (leafy), glabrous or glabrate. Leaves basal (in rosettes, petiolate) and cauline, bicolor (white and green); blades ovate, 3–7(–20) × 2–4(–6) cm, 2–3-pinnately-lobed (lobes elliptic, 2–6 mm wide; cauline sessile, smaller), faces tomentose (abaxial) or glabrous or glabrescent (adaxial), glandular. Heads (nodding, peduncles 0 or 2) in paniculiform to racemiform arrays 10–35 × 2–4 cm (often 1-sided). Involucres broadly ovate, 3–5 × 4–5(–6) mm. Phyllaries broadly ovate, sparsely hairy. Florets: pistillate 4–5(–13), (1–1.5 mm); bisexual 25–35; corollas yellow, 1.5–2 mm, glabrous. Cypselae elliptic, 0.5–0.8 mm, glabrous.

Flowering late summer–early fall. Open coniferous forests, mid to upper montane; 2200–3100 m; Ariz., Colo., N.Mex.; Mexico (Chihuahua).