Sagebrush

The Latin botanical name Artemisia is derived from the ancient Greek name for wormwood, ἀρτεμισία , which is associated with ἀρτεμμής “healthy”, or with the name of the goddess Artemis , Ἄρτεμις . In folk Latin, wormwood was called absinthium , which is also a loan from the ancient Greek, ἀψίνθιον , which, in turn, is probably borrowed from Persian. Both Latin words are found in the name of the wormwood - Artemisia absinthium .

Other popular names are “yemshan” or “yevshan” (from chagat. and turkm. jaušan , kaz. Zhusan ) - the same as wormwood. This word is mentioned in the Ipatiev Chronicle under the year 1201 ^[3] . The name gained fame after A. Maykov wrote the poem " Emshan ".

Distributed throughout the northern hemisphere , in the temperate zone of Eurasia , in North and South Africa , North America .

On the territory of Russia and neighboring countries, about 180 species are found that are found almost everywhere. Wormwood is most common in the steppes and deserts of Kazakhstan , Central Asia, Transcaucasia , and Ukraine .

In some places, in the south and east of European Russia and Western Asia, small wormwood species form huge continuous thickets on dry and barren rocky steppes, most often consisting of low species of Seaside Wormwood ( Artemisia maritima ), Wormwood drooping or nodding ( Artemisia nutans ) and others; such “wormwood steppes” are especially common in Central Asia, and begin already beyond the Volga, from Astrakhan and Orenburg. Many Russian species are still awaiting their application.

Wormwood - two - and perennial (less often annual ) grasses and shrubs 3-150 cm high, with a thick woody root.

The stems are usually straight. The whole plant has a more or less dense whitish or grayish pubescence, often silvery or felt.

Leaves most often are cinquefoil or cirrostratus separate, alternate, dissected, less often whole and whole-edge, lobes are shallow and thin. The lower leaves are larger, more often on long petioles, the middle and upper leaves are smaller, less dissected, usually sessile.

The flowers are extremely small, often yellow, sometimes reddish, collected in small inflorescences — heads — egg-shaped, cupped or almost spherical baskets 1-10 mm in diameter with tiled leaflets. Inflorescences consist of the finest tubular bisexual flowers, with marginal filiform and unisexual pistillate; the whole inflorescence is surrounded by a tiled ceiling. The flower heads are collected in long brushes, ears or panicles. In some species in baskets 1 row of pistillate tubular marginal flowers and more numerous bisexual flowers of the disk (subgenus Artemisia); in others, the flowers of the disk are staminate (subgenus Draclinculus) or all the flowers in the baskets are bisexual, tubular (subgenus Seriphidium).

Fruit - smooth, small achene without crest.

Medicine

A number of species has medicinal value, especially citrus wormwood ( Artemisia cina ), as well as bitter wormwood ( Artemisia absinthium ). It is used mainly in gastric products. Earlier tinctures of wormwood were used as an anthelmintic. Tinctures, infusions and extracts prepared from leaves and flowering leafy tops of bitter wormwood shoots are used as a means to stimulate appetite.

Cooking and Cosmetics

Tarragon wormwood, or tarragon ( Artemisia dracunculus ), is bred as a spicy plant, raw material for the production of drinks. Bitter wormwood is part of a delicious tea.

Wormwood extracts and tinctures are part of some strong alcoholic drinks ( absinthe ) and wines ( vermouth ).

Essential oil of some types of wormwood is used in perfumes and cosmetics. They extract it by insisting on alcohol, as well as by hydrodistillation . Certain species are bred to produce essential oils, for example lemon or medicinal wormwood ( Artemisia abrotanum ) and Taurida wormwood ( Artemisia taurica ).

Other

Many insects cannot tolerate the smell of wormwood; therefore, decoction and fresh leaves of wormwood are used to repel fleas ^[4] .

Some types of wormwood are very decorative and are used in landscape design .

Some species, for example, White Earth Wormwood ( Artemisia terrae-albae ), Lerch Wormwood ( Artemisia lerchiana ), Little wormwood, or black ( Artemisia pauciflora ), Broad-leaved Wormwood ( Artemisia diffusa ), are important as fodder plants for sheep, goats, horses and horses , especially in early spring, autumn and winter.

A number of species are used to strengthen soils, for example, Dzungarian wormwood ( Artemisia songarica ) and sand wormwood ( Artemisia arenaria ).

Many species are known as weeds, for example, Annual Wormwood ( Artemisia annua ), Taurian Wormwood ( Artemisia taurica ), Austrian Wormwood, or wormwood ( Artemisia austriaca ), and several others.

Taxonomy

Artemisia L. , 1753, Species Plantarum 2: 845 ^[5] .

Synonyms

• Absinthium Mill.
• Chamartemisia Rydb.
• Elachanthemum Y.Ling & YRLing
• Oligosporus Cass.
• Seriphidium ( Besser ex Hook. ) Poljakov

Views

According to The Plant List database, the genus includes 481 species ^[6] , some of which are:

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• Aksyonova L. Wormwood - bitter, useful, beautiful // Floriculture : journal. - 2008. - No. 6 . - S. 58–61 .
• Linda E Watson, Paul L Bates, Timothy M Evans, Matthew M Unwin and James R Estes. Molecular phylogeny of subtribe Artemisiinae (Asteraceae), including Artemisia and its allied and segregate genera (Eng.) // . - 2002. - Vol. 2 , iss. 17 . - DOI : 10.1186 / 1471-2148-2-17 . .
• Artemisia // Flora of China : [ eng. ] = 中国 植物 志 : in 25 vol. / ed. by Z. Wu , PH Raven , . - Beijing: Science Press; St. Louis: Missouri Botanical Garden Press, 2011 .-- Vol. 20/21: Asteraceae. - P. 676. - 992 p. - ISBN 978-0-915279-34-0 . - ISBN 978-1-935641-07-0 (vol. 20/21).
• Artemisia and Seriphidium species list // Flora of Pakistan

• Artemisia (English) : Tropicos taxon information.