FAMILY :: COMPOSITAE
Small plant, $70 pesos
“There fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp. And the name of the star is called Wormwood.”
— Revelations 8:10, 11, The Christian Bible
WORMWOOD, ABSINTHE: One of my favorite herbs. Very bitter, contains thujone. Once used as a stimulant for cerebral exhaustion, as a stomachic, antiseptic, antihelminthic. Marketed commercially in Absorbine Jr., a liniment for sprains. It’s also the main ingredient in Absinthe, the internationally demonized alcoholic distillation that “inspired” and drove insane many of the Impressionist Era and late 19th Century artists and writers (Van Gogh, Degas, Gauguin, Poe, Toulouse-Lautrec, Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud, Picasso, &c).
Written records of the use of wormwood date back to the Assyrians of 600 BC. An old Judea-Christian legend has it that Wormwood first sprang up in the trail of the serpent as s/he left Eden. The genus, Artemisia, is named for Artemis, the Greek goddess of wild nature. Large doses of this plant are poisonous: an early symptom of this poisoning is purple-tinted vision. The hardy, 3-6′ plant is easily grown in almost any situation, preferring full sun.
A LIGHT HEARTED HISTORY OF ABSINTHE:
TO SERVE ABSINTHE:
THE ABSINTHE MURDER
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