Perennials, 20-50(-60) cm, strongly aromatic (rhizomatous, fibrous-rooted). Stems 3-20, erect, light brown, simple or branched, glabrous. Leaves cauline, dark green; blades lanceolate, 1.5-5 × 1-2.5 cm, 2-pinnatifid (primary lobes 5-9, 0.4-1.5 cm; cauline smaller, pinnatifid to entire), faces tomentose (abaxial) or glabrous (adaxial). Heads (peduncles 0 or to 3 mm) in usually paniculiform, sometimes racemiform, arrays 5-20 × 1.5-4 cm. Involucres campanulate to hemispheric, 2.5-3.5 × 2-4.5 mm. Phyllaries broadly ovate, glandular (at least at bases). Florets: pistillate 3-8; bisexual, sometimes functionally staminate, (15-)20-35; corollas bright yellow, 1.3-2.2 mm, glandular. Cypselae (light brown) ellipsoid (± arcuate, ribs 4, prominent), ca. 1 mm, glandular. 2n = 18.

Flowering late summer. Coarse taluses, alkaline soils, erosion gullies; 1000-2400 m; Idaho, Nev., Oreg.

Artemisia packardiae is known only from southeastern Oregon, western Idaho, and northeastern Nevada. It is closely related to A. michauxiana and could be considered an ecologic variant.