Wormwood - Artemisia absinthium

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Wormwood - Artemisia absinthium
© Dr Chris Gibson/English Nature

This tall, bushy perennial is woody at its base and carries finely-divided, silvery-green leaves which are quite aromatic. The small, drooping, cup-shaped white flowers are arranged in clusters rising from the leaf axils. Wormwood was formerly used by gardeners to discourage slugs and snails and to produce a distilled liquid to spray against aphids. In the wild, wormwood is a plant of waysides and dry waste ground. Both the wormwood shark moth and the wormwood pug moth feed on this plant although only the latter is at all likely in gardens. It will also attract bees.

It has been grown in gardens since the Middle Ages and is probably an ancient introduction rather than a native plant. Choose a position for this plant with care because it exudes a substance from its roots which may prevent other plants nearby from thriving.

Wormwood is a very bitter herb possessing preservative properties and for these reasons was, in times past, used by brewers in the place of hops. The plant contains a volatile oil, either dark green or blue in colour, with a strong odour and an acrid taste. The oil contains many active constituents including absinthol, absinthic acid, and the bitter glucoside absinthin. It is these latter extracts from wormwood which are used in the making of the absinthe liqueur. Remember, though, that it was home-made absinthe that finished off Toulouse-Lautrec!

Animals

Bees and wasps

Foliage	Silver
Flower	Green, July to August
Moisture	(Dry)
Sunlight	(Full sun)
Origin	Non-native