Mountain Sagewort (Artemesia norvegica)

Tatoosh Ridge Trail, Gifford Pinchot National Forest, WA, 7/2020.

These Mountain Sageworts were mixed into the incredible flower fields we found on Tatoosh Ridge south of Mt. Rainier.  The tall, dusty, stems (typically over 2′) are full of mostly pale yellow nodding heads of composite rayless flowers.  But it was the dark outlines of the bracts of the flowerheads that we found particularly striking.

Sageworts are often called mugworts, or wormwoods, which interestingly enough, is related to the European wormwood, A. Absinthium, used in making the infamous Absinthe liquor that fueled French poets such as Baudelaire and Rimbaud in the late 1800s (and was banned in the US until 2007!).

Tatoosh Ridge, WA, 7/2020.

Tatoosh Ridge, WA, 7/2020.

Tatoosh Ridge, WA, 7/2020.

This Mountain Artemesia is most commonly found in Alaska on rocky exposed alpine and sub-alpine ridges.

Tatoosh Ridge flower fields, WA, 7/2020.