Ingredient of absinthe, favoured by C19th artists incl. Vincent van Gogh

Wink, Michael & Ben-Erik van Wyk (2008). Mind-Altering and Poisonous Plants of the World. Timber Press

– Common absinthe, Old Man, Lad’s Love, Wormwood

Oakeley, Dr. H. F. . (2013). The Gardens of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Link

Culpeper: ‘... help weakness of the stomach, clense Choller, kill worms, open Stoppings, help surfets, cleer the sight, resist poisons, clense the blood and secure cloaths from moths.’

Culpeper, Nicholas. (1650). A Physical Directory . London, Peter Cole.

Notes: Used in the manufacture of the liqueur, absinthe, but it is said to be toxic – causing brain damage - and its use has been banned in many countries. Whether the hallucinations and brain damage of heavy absinthe drinkers are any different from those of all other alcoholics is still contested. The oil was used as a moth and insect repellent. It contains santonin, previously used as a vermifuge before less toxic treatments were known. It has been used as an abortifacient and a contraceptive, but its main use in Roman times – and in present day Pompei – is for colitis.

Oakeley, Dr. H. F. . (2013). The Gardens of the Pharmacopoeia Londinensis. Link

Artemisia: after the Greek goddess Artemis who so benefitted from a plant of this family that she gave it her own name. This was also the old Latin name given to the mugwort or wormwoods. An alternative possibility for the derivation of this name is that it comes from Queen Artemisia of Halicarnassus in Asia Minor (Turkey), sister and wife of King Mausolus, who ruled after his death from 352 to 350 B.C.E. and built during her short reign one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus, which she unfortunately did not live to see the completion of. This is one of the many genera which Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus published in his Species Plantarum in 1753 and is in the family Asteraceae

http://www.calflora.net/southafrica/1A-B.html

Contains thujone, which means the plant is toxic if ingested in large amounts.

Professor Anthony Dayan, 2021

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