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Artemisia abrotanum
Also called Southern Wormwood, Lad's Love, Lemonwood, Old Man, Slovenwood
A bushy, aromatic shrub-like perennial with feathery grey-green leaves and a strong camphor-like scent, widely grown in gardens and used historically to repel moths. It thrives in hot, dry, sunny spots with sharp drainage and dislikes humid conditions.
Artemisia abrotanum, the southernwood, lad's love, or southern wormwood, is a species of flowering plant in the sunflower family. It is native to Eurasia and Africa but naturalized in scattered locations in North America. Other common names include: old man, boy's love, oldman wormwood, lover's plant, appleringie, garderobe, Our Lord's wood, maid's ruin, garden sagebrush, European sage, sitherwood and lemon plant.
Southernwood has a strong camphor-like odour and was historically used as an air freshener or strewing herb. It forms a small bushy shrub, which is widely cultivated by gardeners. The grey-green leaves are small, narrow and feathery. The small flowers are yellow. It can easily be propagated by cuttings, or by division of the roots.
Artemisia abrotanum grows in acidic, well-drained soil and prefers loamy, sandy, clay soil to grow to full size. It needs full sun exposure in a sheltered location away from extreme winds. The plant is susceptible to root rot.
In 2012, the European Food Safety Authority reported that all the aerial parts of Artemisia abrotanum contain substances that can be toxic to humans, due to the presence in the essential oil of bicyclic monoterpenes and phenylpropanoids. The severity of poison is low but if eaten in large quantities can be very toxic to humans. The parts of the plant that are poisonous are the bark, flowers, fruits, leaves, roots, seeds, and the stems.
It has been mentioned as early as the sixteenth century in Swedish Danish medicinal books that it was used as a treatment for people and animals.
Absinthium · African Wormwood · White Mugwort · Sweet sagewort · Hedge Artemisia · Chinese Mugwort · Biennial wormwood · Coastal sagebrush · Capillary Artemisia · Carruth's sagewort · Douglas' sagewort · Tarragon
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Artemisia abrotanum by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
