Artemisia absinthium

Scientific description

Taxon: Angiospermatophyta (Magnoliophyta)
Class: Dicotyledonatae (Magnoliatae)
Subclass: Asteridae
Order: Asterales (Compositales)
Family: Asteraceae (Compositae)
Common name: wormwood, white wormwood
Origin: Eurasian

Description:
It is a perennial, robust herbaceous plant, reaching heights of 0.5–1.2 m. It has deep-penetrating taproots. The stem is hairy, erect. The leaves are also hairy, bi or tri-pinnately divided, lanceolate. Both the stem and leaves have a gray-white color due to dense and silky hairs. The flowers are yellow, arranged in small corymb inflorescences, which are further arranged in racemes at the top of the stems. The entire plant has a characteristic odor. It blooms in June–July.

Propagation: Seeds

Ecology:
It grows in ruderal places, on uncultivated lands in plains and hills. It thrives in sunny and dry areas, on neutral soils.

Use:
Plant extracts are used to prepare an alcoholic beverage called absinthe, and together with other plants, in the production of vermouth. Since ancient times, it has been a well-known medicinal plant. The aerial parts are recommended for hypochlorhydric gastritis, anorexia, digestive atony, vomiting, renal edema, gout. Externally, it is used for purulent wounds and hemorrhoids.

Threat: It is a thermophilic plant, threatened by excessive agriculturalization.

Creative writing inspired by Arctium Lappa

Written by Andrada-Alexandra Lica

The Bitterness That Heals

It is said that long ago, when people stopped listening to the voice of the earth and women’s suffering was swallowed by silence, an ancient being descended from the mountains. She was neither human nor shadow — something between a star and the wind. She wore a cloak of silver leaves, and her footsteps left no trace. They called her Artemis, but few dared speak her name aloud. She appeared only when the forests wept and the trees bent low in prayer.

Artemis wandered from village to village, searching for forgotten girls, wounded mothers, and souls scorched by shame. She rarely spoke, yet in her gaze lived a stillness that soothed all pain. It was said that if she touched your forehead, your dreams would take root in the soil and grow into healing plants.

One day, in a village bruised by war and sorrow, Artemis found a young woman named Elina. She was sickly and pale, with eyes that had long since stopped looking at the world. She had not spoken in weeks. She flinched at light. The villagers called her cursed.

Without a word, Artemis gathered leaves from a bitter plant — narrow, silver-green, with a sharp, earthy scent. She boiled them in clean water and brought the warm brew to Elina’s lips. The girl cried. Deeply. Bitterly. And in those tears, memories poured out — everything she had buried to survive. Then she slept for three days. When she awoke, she smiled faintly.

“What was that?” she asked.

“The bitterness that heals,” Artemis replied. “You will learn to carry it like armor.”

Artemis left that same night and was never seen again. But where she walked, delicate silver-leafed plants began to sprout. They called it wormwood and the women gathered it in silence, for wounds no one else could see.

Even now, it is said that when you sip wormwood tea and taste its sharpness, it doesn’t only heal your body — it heals something deeper. For Artemis did not die. She became every bitter leaf, every woman who stood again after being broken.

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