Every year since 1995, the International Herb Association has chosen an Herb of the Year to highlight. The Herb of the Year Program, spearheaded by IHA’s Horticultural Committee, has established Artemisias as Herb of the Year for 2014.
A major triumph in the fight against malaria, which facing rapidly increased resistance to widely used medications, artemisinin was found to be 100% effective when used correctly. Unfortunately, not a little thanks to criminal activity in Southeast Asia, by last year it was becoming obvious that despite its ‘natural’ origin, the pathogenic agent of malaria,
Plasmodium falciparum, slowly becomes resistant to artemisinin-based drugs. Strangely though Wee Yeow Chin & Hsuan Keng in their authoritative An Illustrated Dictionary of Chinese Medicinal Herbs (1992), make no mention of A. annua, instead naming A. apiacea for the treatment of malaria.
Wormwood,
Artemisia absinthe
The Bible specifically mentions wormwood: in Deuteronomy 29:18,19 we learn of the ‘root that beareth gall and wormwood,’ while Jeremiah, when not weeping, warns (9:15): ‘Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink.’ However we had to wait until the late 19th century for Mrs. E. Lynn Linton to advise, “It was so much gall and wormwood to the family,” meaning anything extremely disagreeable and annoying.
The French impressionists would not have agreed, given that they very obviously believed that absinthe makes the heart grow fonder. The green liquor achieves its strangely bitter tastes thanks to Artemisia absinthe among other herbs, such as fennel, anise, star anise, and hyssop, according to the authorative Prosper Montagne, Larousse Gastronomique (1938). Supposedly both an aphrodisiac and source of artistic inspiration, it is likely that during La Belle Époque it was simply poorly distilled, or the imbibers were alcoholics – or both. Today, more refined – and safer – versions are created in both Central Europe and British Columbia.
Less bibulous gardeners might do well to follow the advice of the ancient Greek Democritus, who suggested soaking seeds and a decoction of wormwood and later drenching plants with it.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, Christian Ratsch in his 1990 book
Pflanzen de Liebe (1990 EMB, Lucerne) claimed that the dried leaves of wormwood ‘were smoked in place of marijuana to produce euphoric and aphrodisiac moods.’ Mrs. Linton probably came nearer to the mark a century earlier. Still earlier Hamlet’s aside of “wormwood, wormwood,” also displays a disdain for its supposed qualities. You can depend on Shakespeare to have known his stuff.
Southernwood,
Artemisia abrotanum
Southernwood was an essential in early 20th century Canadian gardens, “a place where sunshine lingered,” wrote Lucy Maud Montgomery in her 1908 classic Anne of Green Gables. She included
Artemesia abrotanum in a formidable list of flowers, adding to this almost 30 years later in Anne of Windy Poplars (1936).
Native to southern Europe it flourishes in gardens throughout that continent and in temperate North America, perhaps more as an ornamental than its former herbal prominence. A fine moth repellant, as is indicated by the French garderobe, aromatic sprigs were placed with clothing.
Early 17th century herbalist Nicolas Culpepper waxed ecstatic over southernwood suggesting it as a cure for fevers, inflamed eyes, pimples and, taken with wine, as a sure answer for poisonings. Mixed with oil and applied to heads of the bald would cause hair to speedily grow. The same treatment would encourage the growth of beards in youths, something many a male film star might try today.
Judges used southernwood as protection against jail fever; ladies took sprigs to church to keep awake through services; and in southeastern Europe it was burnt as incense to protect against thunder.
It is carnal connections, however, that figure prominently in many an early herbal. So potent was the scent that simply placing a bunch beneath the bed was enough to encourage unhindered copulation, or so would-be Lotharios were advised.
Less lasciviously, it was known as Lad’s Love, with sprigs traditionally placed in posies and presented to girlfriends.
French Tarragon,
Artemisia dracunculus
The late master chef James Beard once opined: “I believe if I ever had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there was enough tarragon around.” He referred of course French tarragon that can only be propagated vegetatively. Unscupulous seed merchants have been known to offer packages of far inferior Russian tarragon, Artemisia dracuncoloides. While their botanical names may be similar, the flavour is definitely lacking in the latter.
More readily available than fresh, the flavourful dried leaves find use in soups, stews, sauces, herb bread and vinegar. Under its French name, estragon (‘little dragon’),
Larousse Gastronomique suggests its use accompanied by chervil and chives to flavour green salads. It is particularly valued for its affinity with chicken and crustacean, as in the classic French
poulet à l’estragon and
crevettes à l’estragon.
Tarragon appears to have originated in southern Russia and western Asia. Unlike most herbs, its appearance on the culinary and medicinal scene was delayed until the Middle Ages. Although the 13th-century Arab botanist Ibn al-Baytar from Spain mentioned it briefly, tarragon didn’t really take until the sixteenth century. Then its use took off: according to food historians the herb arrived in England in 1548. This fact did not prevent versifier Ogden Nash from suggesting that: “Henry the Eighth divorced Catherine of Aragon/Because of her reckless use of tarragon.” Henry did – but Catherine didn’t and kept her head.
Artemisia princeps, Yomogi, Japanese Mugwort,
Kui Hao
The Japanese make delicious rice dumplings called yomogi muchi with this herb. Young leaves are boiled slightly and them pounded into dumplings made with gelatinous rice, adding distinctive and delightful colour, aroma and flavour, notes the celebrated
Richters Herb Catalogue. It goes on to explain that young leaves and seedlings are used in soups and salads, while medicinally, the leaves are used for moxa in Japan and to treat eczema, itchy skin and excessive womb bleeding in China. And if all that is not enough itis, Richters explains, also used to dye cotton and silk.
Sagebrush,
Artemisia tridentate
Devotees of the lore of the American Old West will be familiar through countless references in books, movies and song to sagebrush, yet another of the Artemisia genera. A low, shrub-like herb of the arid and semi-arid western North America, it extends up into the drier hinterland of British Columbia. There it is celebrated in the 706-seat Sagebrush Theatre, jointly owned by the City of Kamloops and the Kamloops/Thompson School District.
Tom Lehrer, the satirical songster of the mid-20th-century warbled in ‘The Wild West Is Where I Want to Be’ how he longed ‘Mid the sagebrush and the cactus/I’ll watch the fellers practice/Droppin’ bombs through the clean desert breeze” as the Atomic Energy Commission (yeah-hah!) created radioactive air around the attractive scenery.
Mugwort,
Artemisia vulgaris
While many another Artemisia has found both herbal and ornamental usage, mugwort seems to have rather fallen by the wayside. Perhaps as the specific vulgaris suggests, it is rather too common, ranging from Europe and North Africa all the way through Siberia. Indeed it is to be found growing wild throughout this vast geographic and the name, ‘place where mugwort grows’ appears in Indo-European languages as chornobyl – for example, the now-notorious Chernobyl in Ukraine.
Nevertheless, the aromatic foliage has been used since at least the Iron Age in Europe to flavour drinks, alcoholic and otherwise. As Abigail Tucker noted in the Smithsonian magazine (July/August 2011), “The ancients were liable to spike their drinks with all sorts of unpredictable stuff – olive oil, bog myrtle, cheese, meadow sweet, mugwort, carrot, not to mention hallucinogens like hemp and poppy.” Little wonder then that mugwort was also believed to have magical properties. Perhaps more usefully it has long been used as an insect repellent.
The leaves have also been appreciated as a condiment. According to
Richters Herb Catalogue, the bitter flower buds improve digestion of rich meat, poultry and fish dishes.
