Wormwood

2024 Author: Gavin MacAdam | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:38

Wormwood is one of the plants of the family called Asteraceae or Compositae, in Latin the name of this plant will sound like this: Artemisia absinthium L. As for the name of the family of wormwood itself, in Latin it will be like this: Asteraceae Dumort. (Compositae Giseke).

Description of wormwood

Wormwood is a herbaceous perennial plant, the height of which can reach one meter. Such a plant will be endowed with a very intense smell. The stems of this plant will be ribbed and branched upward, while the leaves themselves are gray tomentose and silky. The basal and lower leaves of this plant are endowed with secondary lobules and are doubly pinnate and also incised again. The upper leaves of wormwood will be linear and trifoliate. The flower baskets of this plant will be quite small in size, they are collected at the very top of the stem with a panicle, and they will also be drooping and sit in the very axils of the apical leaves. All flowers of wormwood will be tubular, with the inner flowers being bisexual, while the marginal flowers are female.

Wormwood bloom occurs in the period from July to August. Under natural conditions, this plant is found everywhere in the territory of Ukraine, Belarus and the European part of Russia. To grow, wormwood prefers railway embankments, weedy places, hills, places near fences, near roads and in fields.

Description of the medicinal properties of wormwood

Bitter wormwood is endowed with very effective healing properties, while for medicinal purposes it is recommended to use the leaves and flowering tops of this plant. The presence of such valuable healing properties is recommended to be explained by the content of resins, protein, vitamin C, salts of various acids, essential oil, glycosides of absintin and anabsintin, as well as tannins in the composition of this plant. It should be noted that the main constituents of the essential oil of this plant will be azulene, lactones arabsin and artabine, terpene alkaloid thujol and ketone thujone. In addition, phytoncides will be in the composition of wormwood.

This plant is indicated for use in the form of tea, pills, infusion and extract, as well as a bitter-spicy drink as a choleretic agent, with the accumulation of gases in the intestines, with fever, to enhance the activity of the digestive organs and to stimulate appetite.

As for traditional medicine, here this plant is very widespread. Traditional medicine is recommended to use wormwood juice as a very effective wound healing agent. Such a drug is indicated for use in the accumulation of gases in the intestines and fever, and is also used as an anthelmintic. The essential oil of this plant is used for eczema, bronchial asthma, rheumatism and burns, especially for radiation therapy.

For insomnia and kidney stones, it is recommended to use fresh wormwood juice mixed with alcohol. In addition, such a healing agent is also indicated for use as a wound healing agent.

For articular rheumatism and gout, it is recommended to use the following very effective remedy based on this plant: to prepare such a healing remedy, you will need to take a kilogram of wormwood herb and boil it in a full bucket of water. Then such a healing agent should be insisted and poured into the bath. Then such a filled bath is used for about fifteen to twenty minutes, while the water temperature should not exceed thirty-seven degrees.