Artemisia annua
sweet wormwood
Family AsteraceaeAlso called sweet annie, sweet sagewort, annual mugwort
About
Sweet wormwood is an aromatic annual from temperate Asia and the source of artemisinin, a key drug against the deadliest form of malaria.
Care at a glance
- Pet safety
- Not recorded. We have no source on whether this plant is safe for cats, dogs or other pets — that is not the same as safe. Keep it out of reach until you have checked.
- People
- Not recorded.
- Mature size
- 30–100 cm in the wild, up to 2 m in cultivation.
Field notes
Morphology
Hairless annual, short-day plant with an erect brownish or violet-brown stem, normally 30–100 cm tall but up to 2 m in cultivation. Leaves are 3–5 cm long, deeply cut into two or three small leaflets, and intensely aromatic.
Distribution & habitat
Native to temperate Asia and naturalised in many countries, including scattered parts of North America.
Cultivation notes
Grown commercially for artemisinin; dried leaves usually contain up to 1.5%, and newer hybrids and genotypes bred in Switzerland and the United States reach about 2%.
History & etymology
The discovery of artemisinin and its antimalarial effect earned Chinese scientist Tu Youyou the 2011 Lasker Prize and the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.
Habitat
- Altitude
- Not recorded
- Altitude class
- —
Cultivation
- Difficulty
- Not recorded
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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