Tauric Wormwood

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

Tauric wormwood is one of the plants of the family called Asteraceae or Compositae, in Latin the name of this plant will sound as follows: Artemisia taurica Willd. As for the name of the Taurida wormwood family itself, in Latin it will be as follows: Asteraceae Dumort. (Compositae Giseke).

Description of Tauric wormwood

Tavricheskaya or Crimean wormwood is a semi-shrub, the upper part of which will die off every autumn, and will grow again in the spring of next year. The roots of such a plant will be woody, slightly branched, thick and rodlike. The whole plant can be either whitish or gray tomentose from the abundance of covering hairs. The aerial part of this plant will, in turn, consist of strongly shortened sterile shoots and stems. The stems of Tauric wormwood are ribbed and straight, and in the upper part they will be branched and flowering. The leaves of the sterile shoots of this plant, as well as the lower stem leaves, will be petiolate, and the plate is thrice-cut or double-cut. The root lobules of the leaves of Tauric wormwood will be threadlike and thin, and their length is about three to five millimeters. The upper stem leaves of this plant are less dissected, almost sessile, while the bracts are linear-filamentous and simple. Tavricheskaya wormwood flowers are located in baskets of six to eight pieces, they will be tubular, and numerous small-sized baskets are located on the branches and a paniculate inflorescence is formed. Such an inflorescence is endowed with branches obliquely directed upwards and is narrowly pyramidal in shape.

The flowering of Tauric wormwood occurs in the period from August to September. This plant grows on the territory of the Taman Peninsula, the North Caucasus, Rostov and Volgograd regions, the Caspian steppes to Dagestan, as well as in the steppe part of the Crimea. For growth, this plant prefers dry steppes, semi-deserts, clayey and solonetzic places. Tauric wormwood grows in small thickets or spots among other types of wormwood.

Description of the medicinal properties of Tauric wormwood

Tauric wormwood is endowed with very valuable healing properties. The presence of such medicinal properties is recommended to be explained by the content of essential oil in the herb of this plant, while the main component of such an oil will be the sesquiterpene lactone tauremizine. Such a healing substance will be present in the herb of this plant, which was collected throughout the entire budding period.

It should be noted that tauremizine is used for various cardiovascular diseases like camphor preparations. Nevertheless, unlike camphor, such a healing agent is used intravenously and in cases where urgent assistance is needed. In addition, tauremizine is endowed with the ability to manifest a stimulating effect on the central nervous system and diuresis, and also has a cardiotonic and vasotonic effect. As already mentioned, tauremizine can be a substitute for camphor, and it is also low-toxic and does not cause any side effects.

After frosts and until the beginning of the spring period, Tauric wormwood serves as fodder for all types of livestock. For this reason, this plant is one of the most important dwarf plants for winter pastures located in the Eastern Ciscaucasia. Nevertheless, it should be noted that after the leaf blooming in Tauric wormwood, this plant cannot be used as food for animals. This should be attributed to the fact that up to autumn frosts, this plant will cause poisoning in animals.