Artemisia cina
santonica
Family AsteraceaeAlso called Levant wormseed, wormseed
About
Santonica is a Central Asian perennial herb whose dried flower heads have been the source of the worm-expelling drug santonin since ancient times.
Field notes
Morphology
Herbaceous perennial. Like other daisy-family plants it has spherical pollen grains; its tissues contain clusters of calcium oxalate crystals.
Distribution & habitat
China, Pakistan, Russia, Turkestan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.
History & etymology
The powdered flower heads are grey-green, aromatic and bitter; the common names reflect their use to expel worms. The plant appears in Jorge Luis Borges's story 'Funes the Memorious'. Not to be confused with Dysphania ambrosioides, also called wormseed.
Habitat
- Altitude
- Not recorded
- Altitude class
- —
- Native to
- China, Pakistan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan
Cultivation
- Difficulty
- Not recorded
Text adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.
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