Revision as of 20:44, 13 February 2012

Introduction

Introduction from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisia_absinthium, retrieved 02/13/2012).

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

It is a herbaceous, perennial plant with fibrous roots. 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 trichomes, 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.

It grows naturally on uncultivated, arid ground, on rocky slopes, and at the edge of footpaths and fields.

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Macroscopic Entries

Microscopic Entries

Wormwood (leafy tops) (Absinthium vulgare Lam., Compositae.)The most distinctive tissue elements are the very abundant T-shaped, rather thin-walled trichromes with three to four basal cells; the rather large, yellowish, sessile, glandular trichromes with several vertical tiers of cells, are also quite diagnostic some pollen grains presenting the characteristics of the pollen of the order Compositae will generally be found. The vertical walls of the epidermal cells are wavy or sinuate and the stomata are abundant and fairly large. Compare with Achilea and insect powder which are similar in certain of the histological characteristics. Source: Schneider, A. (1921) The Microanalysis of Powdered Vegetable Drugs, 2nd ed. [1]

T-shaped trichromes with three to four basal cells in 400X Acidified chloral Hydrate Soln.The most distinctive tissue elements are the very abundant T-shaped, rather thin-walled trichromes with three to four basal cells as well as the strap-shaped tubular covering trichomes.400X Acidified chloral Hydrate Soln. Source: Elan M. Sudberg Alkemists Labs. and British Pharmacopoeia, 2003 [2]

HPTLC Entries

Other Points of Interest

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