Artemisia absinthium ( absinthium , absinthe wormwood , wormwood or grand wormwood ) is a species of wormwood , native to temperate regions of Eurasia and northern Africa .

It is a herbaceous perennial plant , with a hard, woody rhizome . more

Artemisia absinthium ( absinthium , absinthe wormwood , wormwood or grand wormwood ) is a species of wormwood , native to temperate regions of Eurasia and northern Africa .

It is a herbaceous perennial plant , with a hard, woody rhizome . The stems are straight, growing to 0.8-1.2 m (rarely 1.5 m) tall, grooved, branched, and silvery-green. The leaves are spirally arranged, greenish-grey above and white below, covered with silky silvery-white hairs, and bearing minute oil-producing glands; the basal leaves are up to 25 cm long, bipinnate to tripinnate with long petioles , with the cauline leaves (those on the stem) smaller, 5-10 cm long, less divided, and with short petioles; the uppermost leaves can be both simple and sessile (without a petiole). Its flowers are pale yellow, tubular, and clustered in spherical bent-down heads (capitula), which are in turn clustered in leafy and branched panicles . Flowering is from early summer to early autumn; pollination is anemophilous . The fruit is a small achene ; seed dispersal is by gravity. less