Artemisia arborescens L.
Eng.: Tree wormwood. Spa.: Ajenjo mayor. Fre.: Armoise arborescente. Ara.: Chiba. Tam.: Tacetta meriem.
Subshrub or shrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 1.5 m in height, very ramose, erect, aromatic, with dense, whitish foliage. Stems slightly tortuous, with greyish bark. Branches erect, younger branches slightly pendulous, whitish. Lower leaves longly petiolate, tripinnatisect —upper leaves sessile or subsessile, usually bipinnatisect—, with narrow linear segments (1-5 mm), silky-whitish on both sides, not punctate. Inflorescence paniculiform, with leaves, composed of short racemes of floral capitula. Capitula subglobose, very small (5-7 mm in diameter), heterogamous (with hermaphrodite florets in the centre and feminine florets on the periphery). Involucre tomentose-whitish. Flowers glabrous, yellow. Fruit a minute achene with the surface covered with yellowish glands.
Flowering:
April to July.
Fruiting:
June to August.
Habitat:
Forests, thickets and rocky outcrops of littoral and sublittoral regions. It can also be found cultivated almost throughout all of North Africa.
Distribution:
Mediterranean region. In North Africa it is found in the northernmost coastal areas, from Cape Bon in Tunisia to the Atlantic plains of northern Morocco. Because it is found widely cultivated, it can also be found more inland, in mountainous, steppic and even desert areas (oasis). It has also been cited in the central Saharan Atlas. Although all authors agree is that this is a Mediterranean species, the majority affirms that in their country or region it is cultivated or subspontaneous, in southern Europe as well as in North Africa or the Near East.
Conservation status:
Rare but widely distributed species. Currently, it has not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.