Wormwood

wormwood

Kingdom:	Plantae
Division:	Magnoliophyta
Class:	Magnoliopsida
Order:	Asterales
Family:	Asteraceae
Genus:	*Artemisia*
Species:

Binomial name

Ref: ITIS 35445

Wormwood is a herb of the genus Artemisia, family Asteraceae. All types have an extremely bitter taste.

Common wormwood or green ginger (Artemisia absinthium L.) was used to repel fleas and moths, and in brewing. It is also used medically as a tonic, stomachic, febrifuge and anthelmintic. It is native to Europe and Siberia and is now widespread in the United States.

Its bitterness also led to its use by wet-nurses for weaning infants from the breast, as in this speech from Romeo and Juliet Act I, Scene 3:

Nurse: ...

And she [Juliet] was wean'd,--I never shall forget it,--

Of all the days of the year, upon that day:

For I had then laid wormwood to my dug,

...

Roman wormwood (Artemesia pontica) is a flavouring ingredient that provides the psychoactive chemical thujone in the alcoholic drink absinthe.

Other species of wormwood

Sea wormwood (Artemesia maritima)

Associations in human culture

Wormwood (absinthos in the Greek text) is the 'name of the star' in the Book of Revelation (8:11) that John envisions as cast by the angel and falling into the waters, making them undrinkably bitter. Besides in the Book of Revelation we find up to 8 further references in the Bible showing that Wormwood was a common herb of the area and its awful taste was known, as a drinkable preparation applied for specific reasons. This makes sense since the people of those days lived so much closer to the ground and must have appreciated the effects of wormwood to control parasites.

Some authors thought that Chernobyl translates as Wormwood (the correct translation is Mugwort), which has led some (notably the authors of Left Behind) to theorize that this is a coded reference to radioactive contamination.

Wormwood is a junior devil in The Screwtape Letters a novel by C. S. Lewis on human temptation.

Miss Wormwood is Calvin's teacher in Calvin and Hobbes, a former daily comic strip by Bill Watterson. This character is reportedly named after the Screwtape Letters character mentioned above.