Artemisia sacrorum Ledebour f. freyniana Pampanini, Nuovo Giorn. Bot. Ital., n.s., 34: 688. 1927.

Subshrubs, 18-35(-45) cm tall, with thick woody rootstock, with short sterile shoots, with peeling grayish brown bark, and slender, erect, flowering shoots, with branches short or absent, lower parts glabrescent, upper parts more persistently puberulent. Middle stem leaves: petiole 3-5 mm, with pinnatifid basal auricles or pseudostipules; leaf blade elliptic-ovate or elliptic, 2-3 × 0.7-1.5 cm, 2-pinnatisect, abaxially puberulent, adaxially dark green, glabrous; segments 4 or 5 pairs, elliptic, 5-15 × 3-4 mm, pectinately divided; lobules lanceolate, entire or serrulate. Uppermost leaves and leaflike bracts divided or entire; bracts linear or linear-lanceolate. Capitula in dense spicate- or racemose-panicles, globose, 2-3 mm in diam. Marginal female florets 6-8. Disk florets 16-20, bisexual. Achenes obovoid or ellipsoid. Fl. and fr. Aug-Oct.

Steppes, slopes, dry river valleys, riverbanks, outer forest margins; low to middle elevations. N Gansu, Heilongjiang, W Jilin, Nei Mongol, Ningxia [Mongolia, E Russia].