White Wormwood

Artemisia herba-alba, white wormwood, is a perennial shrub that grows commonly on the dry steppes of the Mediterranean regions in North Africa, western Asia and south-western Europe. Its Latin epithet means white herb, because the stems and leaves are white and woolly; in Arabic it is shīeḥ, in biblical Hebrew la'anah and in Greek apsinthos. The strongly aromatic leaves are covered in fine glandular hairs that reflect sunlight, and the plant flowers from September to December. The essential oil contains mainly 1,8-cineole and appreciable amounts of thujone, with other compounds that differ between populations. The page says the plant is good fodder for sheep and, in Algeria, cattle, and is widely used in herbal medicine as an antiseptic, vermifuge and antispasmodic. Bedouin in the Negev used it for enteritis and intestinal disturbances, and Iraqi folk medicine used teas of it for diabetes. It is thought to be the biblical wormwood.