Artemisia arborescens
Artemisia arborescens
The aromatic wormwood (Artemisia arborescens, L., 1763) is a perennial plant of the Asteraceae family.
It is located in the Mediterranean regions up to 1000 m s.l.m., where it develops into tall shrubs even more than one meter. It grows on dry and uncultivated, predominantly rocky terrain.
Description –
Fanerofita is a perennial shrub, aromatic odor, high-50-150 (200) cm, bushy, with erect stems, white-tomentose, much branched, woody at the base. The leaves (3-5 cm) alternate, white-silky, tripennatosette, petiolate, with linear segments, obtuse apex, 1-2 mm wide; upper leaves smaller and sessile, bipennatosette. The heads spherical, hemispherical (5-6 mm diameter), stalked, pendulous before flowering, arranged in dense cob fogliosa a little ‘one-sided; Wrap linear scales, silky and scariose the margins. The flowers are tubular, 2 mm, bright yellow in color, later brownish, female peripheral ones of the hermaphrodite disc; hairy receptacle. The fruit is a Cipsela (achene) cuneiform, sprinkled with yellow glands.
Cultivation –
For the cultivation technique read the following card.
Customs and Traditions –
Like many other species of the genus Artemisia, it has a fragrant smell of “vermouth” and contains active ingredients and essential oils (including chamazulene and monoterpenoni) that have anti-inflammatory, emmenagogue, aperitive and digestive, antihistamine, anthelmintic, anti-viral and anti-microbial . It is also used in perfumery and as a repellent for moths and mice.
The mugwort flowers are widely used to produce creams, ointments and other cosmetics and herbal products; the leaves, however, are edible. The arborescens should never be confused with artemisia absinthium, making more varieties of the Asteraceae with which they produce, as well as herbal products, liqueurs such as absinthe or vermouth.
The roots of the plant have sedative action, able to relax the nervous system, therefore are indicated in the case of sovraccitazione and general fatigue.
The mugwort flowering tops contain essential oils (linalool, cineol, thujone beta, alpha and beta pinene, borneol, neroli, myrcene), sesquiterpene lactones (vulgarina) and flavonoids, which give the action plan antispasmodic (relieves muscle spasms in case menstrual pain and dysmenorrhea) and action emmenagogue (regulates the menstrual flow in case of amenorrhea and menstrual irregularities).
The presence in the plant complex of essential oils as well as make it an effective remedy antiseptic and expectorant in case of cough, it is also used against intestinal parasites, while for the eupeptic action is used in the digestion difficult, especially in the formulation of natural liquors. It seems that some twigs of Artemisia put in the cellar beadle bracts.
It’s a seemingly modest plant, which is easily found in the fields, on the roadside. It actually a remarkable past, boasts qualities and absolutely exceptional ability. There are many, of sagebrush. There artemisia vulgaris, bitter and lively, dark green. There is the tarragon, – the famous Tarragon used in salads, aid the digestive system. There is precisely the Artemisia arborescens Linnaeus, with which the Sicilians – tells him to M. Pitre – use weave crosses to be placed on the roofs of houses. So Jesus, when he returned to heaven, will bless them, and in turn the sagebrush, placed in homes, will protect them during the year. There’s also the white grass, “name”, for quite a herb known worldwide. There are many others. And above all, there is the famous wormwood, Artemisia absinthium.
The mugwort use as a medicinal plant is very effective and popular. The major properties are antiepiretiche, vermifuge, tonic, stimulant, anthelmintic, antipyretic. Also artemisia had made arrangements already in antiquity to provoke menstruation or induce labor because of its emmenagogue properties. Mugwort only using rich flowering ends of resins and the dried leaves in a ventilated and shady place since the direct action of the sun could weaken the active ingredient. Besides internal use wormwood it is suitable as cicratrizzante wound and may be useful in the form of cream or essential oil to counter boils and acne lesions.
There is talk of Artemisia already at the time of Hippocrates who recommended it to expel the placenta of women after childbirth. In the sixteenth century, artemisia was used to soothe the symptoms of epilepsy while in the nineteenth century, this plant became famous throughout Europe because of its use in variation absintium artemisia, in the preparation of the potent liquor absinthe, called “Green Fairy” from the current cursed poets for his outstanding alcoholic and hallucinogenic properties.
Mother of all herbs, mugwort, has special virtues with regard to the women, then regulates menstruation, prevents false pregnancies, it is helpful in parts. It also has additional capabilities: according to Apuleius, his branch makes the traveler feel less the weight of the street. It casts out devils, neutralizes the evil eye and the evil eye.
Two beautiful legends about this herb. The first is a girl going for a walk ends, by accident, in a pit full of snakes. On the car bottom there is a bright stone. The snakes, hungry, are conducted there by the queen of snakes. Rim stone and satiated is one. The girl soon imitated snakes and with them survives. And lo, the winter is past, comes forward, painfully, spring. The snakes wind, tails intertwined to form a staircase: the girl can go outdoors, can re-enter the world. Prior to this the queen of the snakes is a gift: it gives the faculty of understanding the language of herbs, learn about their medicinal properties. In return, she will never appoint artemisia. The young woman soon realizes to understand, in fact, all that the herbs you say, what I suggest. But one bad day a man asks, without notice, as you call the small plant that grows in the fields, the edges of the paths. And she, without thinking, he replied: is the artemisia. And suddenly, here is the language of plants becomes the outsider here does not include the most whispering what the flowers of the field: he has forgotten everything. And ‘why, the story concludes, that wormwood – Chernobyl, in Russian – is also known as the “plant of oblivion”.
The second story is remembered by A. De Gubernatis comes from Little Russia, and concerns the Cossack Sabba. He had tied the devil – with whom he was on the other generally on good terms – and promised to break its ties if he had been helped to get hold of some Polish horses he craved. The devil accepts, calls his friends who untie the horses, so that Sabbath may seize it. The grass moaning, trampled under the hooves of the Polish horses, and says, “bech! Bech!” It is precisely artemisia. His name, from then on, in Ukraine, remember the grass moaning, trampled by horses Poles fleeing. They would have, by themselves, stories of great charm, rich in many ideas. But the story is far richer mugwort, is very old. It is known in the greek-Roman world for its effectiveness in the event of seizures, it can be used with high hopes against epileptic seizures. So, against the famous “moon evil”. Pierre Lieutaghi, in his Dictionary of herbs recalls that artemisia is the “holy herb” of the ancients, as well as a great bitter tonic. It has diuretic, febrifuge, anthelmintic and antiseptic qualities: plant that is good to keep in your home or garden.
Nell’Artemisia seems that Gothic architecture it has immortalized the leaves. Flowers and leaves of Artemisia – to be collected together – have had in the history of medicine, a very respectable place. The wormwood in fact contains an essential oil said absintolo, particularly sought after and useful. It also contains tannic acid, and resins. It has tonic, stimulant, antipyretic. Speaker effectively against lead poisoning. In the past, they are recognized reactive capacity compared to the impoverishment of the blood, and from anemias to various forms of leukemia.
The Artemisia was known seems, by the centaur Chiron: master of wisdom, distinguished physician, teacher of Achilles. The herb has a large space in Latin mythology. Perhaps its name comes from Artemis, the chaste goddess of forests and woodlands, who loves life lonely nights. That is also Selene or Diana, the moon. Or, the grass its name from Artemis queen of the Amazons: the daughters of the Great Mother, dispensing death fatal to humans. We go anyway, with artemisia, in a feminine world of instinct. It is essential to recall the moon, its rhythms. The moon causes lowering of waking consciousness – says the popular tradition that we can not sleep in the moonlight. And the flowers give off mugwort absinthin: a bitter principle which has in the past played the role of a modern, contemporary drug, which causes “hallucinations, delirium and death. Of this death were victims of some poets and artists.” The wormwood is bitter. It’s frightening. She Knows John the Evangelist. He plays the trumpet the terzo angelo, and here “fell from heaven a great star burning like a torch, and fell in the third part of the rivers and springs of water. The name of the star is called Wormwood. And a third part of the waters wormwood, and many men died of the waters because they had made love”. The Artemisia has the virtue medical and poisonous abilities.
Wormwood is also the most famous, perhaps, notes “herb of St. John,” John the Forerunner. It is the grass which we hear about Manlio Barberito, one that is placed on the path of the snake, which tried to hindering its journey. In fires, which for centuries have illuminated the midsummer nights, they consumed their short seasons brambles and thistles, laurel and olive trees, eucalyptus and rue, rosemary and incense. At and onions, spikelets and hypericum, mint and scilla, for years, have protected the way of travelers, in magical nights such as those of the summer solstice, and with them, artemisia.
The flow is on him, for his virtue to banish demons and evil spirits, negative influences. This has brought in his pocket, because he has always favored travel. Please note the use, in various parts of Europe, “to paint a mugwort on the doors of the coaches, especially those in public service, such as apotropaic against accidents and to ensure a happy journey” the past then use the machines and lasted at least until 1920. grass Garden of Eden, St. John’s wort, artemisia not only protects the physical travel, but also, obviously, spiritual ones, those who turn towards the heavenly places. It also reassures quest’erbetta, the path of the sun, “the happy journey and the certain return of the star.” And ‘plant connected to the moon, of course. But it is a herb St. John, the grass sun: thus protects us against negative fires, fires enemies: just a bunch of mugwort behind the door to protect the house from lightning. Not for nothing, according to some versions, the night of St. John is able to secrete a coal that is effective against lightning, particularly protective if taken that night. Another virtue is artemisia: and that is to “donate incorruptibility and win the transience of things.”
Once the ink is tempered with mugwort juice, to make the paper resistant moths.
The popular use has always recognized different capacities, linked to the flowering tops. The artemisia has always had space in the imaginary magical, ever since graced the processions for Isis, in the hands of the ancient priests. He protected, in the past, parts. He was known for hypnotic and abortive capacity capabilities are reverse and opposite sign. If we leave the mugwort John’s vision as grass, and we bear in mind its greek-Roman roots, derived from the goddess of wild animals – or from Amazon – so here it is clear that the mugwort is an herb that has risks that can have dark sides: very dependent on the intentions, the use made of it.
The artemisia as fearsome plant is connected to the moon, to the wild maenads of Dionysus, similar in many ways to the Amazons are disturbing images that reflect the fear of the woman of independence of woman as an instinctual. then plant, artemisia, of saints and angels, plant paradise, help to Eve, Satan attacking.
Preparation Mode –
With the Artemisia you can be prepared infusions: with a spoonful of flowering tops mugwort, and a cup of water. Pour artemisia into boiling water and put out the fire. Cover and let steep for 10 min. Filter the tea and drink 2 cups a day.
With the Artemisia prepares a mother tincture: 30 drops three times a day about ten days before the menstrual cycle; in other cases varying doses 30-50 drops 2-3 times a day between meals.
The artemisia can have some side effects and is contraindicated during pregnancy and lactation; in high doses may be toxic and damage the nervous system. In some people the contact with the skin can cause dermatitis.
Guido Bissanti
Sources
– Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
– Treben M., 2000. The Health from the Pharmacy of the Lord, tips and experiences with medicinal herbs, Ennsthaler Publisher
– Pignatti S., 1982. Flora of Italy, Edagricole, Bologna.
– Conti F., Abbate G., Alessandrini A., Blasi C. (ed), 2005. An annotated checklist of the Italian vascular flora, Palombi Editore.
Please note: Pharmaceutical applications and alimurgici uses are indicated for information purposes only, do not represent in any way a medical prescription; it accepts no liability on their use for therapeutic purposes, cosmetic or food.