Wormwood (Artemsia absinthium) & Mugwort (Artemsia vulgaris)

Both wormwood and mugwort grow in similar habitat: roadside verges, waste ground and old railway lines.  They are easily identified: wormwood having a grey tinge to its green foliage, branched spikes and a soft feel to it.  When in flower, there are small yellow button like flower-heads and the plant stands up to 60cm tall.

Mugwort is similar but with purple stems, leaves pinnate lobed, dull green above, grey underneath and much taller being up to 120cm.  Both plants, though, are strongly aromatic, with wormwood being by far the most pungent.

The genus artemsia is named after the Greek virgin goddess Artemis.  She was the goddess of hunting and chastity, it is also identified with the Roman goddess Diana.  She is not to be confused with the Artemis of Ephesus who was a fertility goddess with multiple breasts, a turreted crown and a kind of nimbus behind her head. - see Acts 19:27.

Wormwood has the scientific name "absinthium" and was used to flavour the drink Absinthe. This was first produced commercially in 1797 by Henry-Louis Pernod.  Wormwood came to be considered dangerous to health and was thought to cause hallucinations and sterility.

Wormwood is mentioned to be used in medicine 4-5 hundred years before Christ. Highly esteemed by Hippocrates and the Greeks who claimed it helped with disorders of the brain.  Wormwood is also mentioned in the Bible where it is compared to the after effects of living an immoral life - Proverbs 5:4.  Also the bitter experience that came upon Judah and Jerusalem by the hands of the Babylonians - Jeremiah 9:15; 23:15; Lamentations 3:15, 19.  It is also mentioned in the book of Revelation - 8;11.

In herbal remedies of old, these two plants were used for a variety of reasons ranging from women's problems and was recorded as the herb of Venus.  The Romans used put them in their sandals when on the march.