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wormwood |
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wormwood, Mediterranean perennial herb or shrubby plant (Artemisia absinthium) of the family Asteraceae (aster aster [Gr.,=star], common name for the Asteraceae (Compositae), the aster family, in North America, name for plants of the genus Aster, sometimes called wild asters, and for a related plant more correctly called China aster (Callistephus chinensis ..... Click the link for more information. family), often cultivated in gardens and found as an escape in North America. It has silvery gray, deeply incised leaves and tiny yellow flower heads. Wormwood oil has been utilized since ancient times as an insect repellent, particularly for moths; until recently it was used for intestinal worms and for other medicinal purposes. It was also employed in brewing but is best known for its bitter principle, which is an important ingredient of absinthe absinthe (ăb`sĭnth), an emerald-green liqueur distilled from wormwood and other aromatics, including angelica root, sweet-flag root, ..... Click the link for more information. ; the compound alpha-thujone, found in wormwood, formerly gave that liqueur its toxicity. Because of its bitter taste the common wormwood has long symbolized human rancor and is often so represented in the Bible. Other artemisias, some American, are also called wormwood; still others include southernwood (A. abrotanum), tarragon tarragon (târ`əgŏn), perennial aromatic Old World herb (Artemisia dracunculus wormwood any of various plants of the chiefly N temperate genus Artemisia, esp A. absinthium, a European plant yielding a bitter extract used in making absinthe: family Asteraceae (composites) How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content. |
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He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. It begun then--at the time of the trouble with her lover," nodded Old Tom; "and it seems as if she'd been feedin' on wormwood an' thistles ever since--she's that bitter an' prickly ter deal with. Removing the weeds, putting fresh soil about the bean stems, and encouraging this weed which I had sown, making the yellow soil express its summer thought in bean leaves and blossoms rather than in wormwood and piper and millet grass, making the earth say beans instead of grass -- this was my daily work. |
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