Shrubs, 5-15(-20) cm (not cespitose), aromatic. Stems relatively numerous, erect, gray, simple (annual flowering branches leafy), loosely sericeous. Leaves (semideciduous) cauline (sessile), gray-green; blades oblanceolate, 0.5-3 × 0.2-1.5 cm (bases attenuate), 3-lobed or irregularly palmatifid (lobes narrow, apices acute), sparsely sericeous-lanate. Heads (mostly erect, peduncles 0 or to 25 mm) in racemiform arrays (4-)8-12(-14) × (0.5-)1-2(-4) cm. Involucres globose, 3.5-5 × 4-5 mm. Phyllaries ovate, sparsely sericeous. Florets: pistillate 8; bisexual 20-35; corollas yellow (tubular with broad throats), ca. 2 mm, glandular. Cypselae (light brown) oblanceoloid (4-5-angled, broadest at truncate apices), 0.3-0.5 mm, glandular-pubescent (pappi coroniform, 0.3-0.6 mm, irregularly lacerate).

Flowering early spring-mid summer. Rocky swales, dry meadows, alkaline mud flats; 1400-2100 m; Idaho, Nev., Oreg.

The pappose cypselae make Artemisia papposa anomalous within Artemisia. Artemisia papposa has capitulescence characteristics that suggest a relationship to Sphaeromeria.