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Absinthium

Artemisia absinthium
Artemisia absinthium P1210748.jpg
Artemisia absinthium growing wild in the Caucasus
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Artemisia
Species: A. absinthium
Binomial name
Artemisia absinthium
L.
Synonyms
  • Absinthium bipedale Gilib., not validly published
  • Absinthium majus Geoffr.
  • Absinthium majus Garsault, not validly published
  • Absinthium officinale Lam.
  • Absinthium officinale Brot.
  • Absinthium vulgare (L.) Lam.
  • Artemisia absinthia St.-Lag.
  • Artemisia arborescens var. cupaniana Chiov.
  • Artemisia arborescens f. rehan (Chiov.) Chiov.
  • Artemisia baldaccii Degen
  • Artemisia doonense Royle
  • Artemisia inodora Mill.
  • Artemisia kulbadica Boiss. & Buhse
  • Artemisia pendula Salisb.
  • Artemisia rehan Chiov.
  • Artemisia rhaetica Brügger

Artemisia absinthium (absinthe, absinthium, absinthe wormwood, grand wormwood, wormwood) is a species of Artemisia, native to temperate regions of Eurasia and Northern Africa and widely naturalized in Canada and the northern United States. It is grown as an ornamental plant and is used as an ingredient in the spirit absinthe as well as some other alcoholic beverages.

Artemisia absinthium is a herbaceous, perennial plant with fibrous roots. The stems are straight, growing to 0.8–1.2 metres (2 ft 7 in–3 ft 11 in) (rarely 1.5 m, but, sometimes even larger) tall, grooved, branched, and silvery-green. The leaves are spirally arranged, greenish-grey above and white below, covered with silky silvery-white trichomes, and bearing minute oil-producing glands; the basal leaves are up to 25 cm long, bipinnate to tripinnate with long petioles, with the cauline leaves (those on the stem) smaller, 5–10 cm long, less divided, and with short petioles; the uppermost leaves can be both simple and sessile (without a petiole). Its flowers are pale yellow, tubular, and clustered in spherical bent-down heads (capitula), which are in turn clustered in leafy and branched panicles. Flowering is from early summer to early autumn; pollination is anemophilous. The fruit is a small achene; seed dispersal is by gravity.

It grows naturally on uncultivated, arid ground, on rocky slopes, and at the edge of footpaths and fields. Although once relatively common, it is becoming increasingly rare in the Uk where it has recently been suggested to be an archeophyte rather than a true native.


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Wikipedia

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