Crni pelen

Botany

Artemisia vulgaris is a species in the family Asteraceae, and Artemisia vulgaris L. is its accepted name. It is native to temperate Europe, Asia, North Africa, and Alaska, and is naturalized in North America. It is a common plant of low-nitrogen soils, such as waste places, roadsides and uncultivated areas. The stems are purple-looking and angular, and the pinnate leaves are dark green on the upper surface. The leaves have dense, whitish, tomentose hairs on the underside. The yellow or reddish-looking flower heads appear from July to September. The plant spreads mainly through rhizomes and rarely reproduces from seeds in temperate regions.

Chemistry

Alpha and beta thujones are found in mugwort, among other plants. Examples of the plant's phytochemicals include camphene, camphor and sabinene. Across Artemisia essential oils in general, 1,8-cineole, beta-pinene, thujone, artemisia ketone, camphor, caryophyllene, camphene and germacrene D are the major components. In a review of Artemisia oils, the composition of the oil of the same species varied between investigations with geographical origin. In a sample from Erie, Pennsylvania, the leaf oil of A. vulgaris held germacrene D (25%), caryophyllene (20%), alpha-zingiberene (15%) and borneol (11%). The bud oil of the same sample held 1,8-cineole (32%), camphor (16%), borneol (9%) and caryophyllene (5%). In a Serbian sample, the oil of A. vulgaris was dominated by sesquiterpene hydrocarbons (51.91%). Its main constituents included gurjunene (10.41%), cis-chrysanthenyl acetate (7.17%) and γ-humulene (6.67%). Oxygenated sesquiterpenes made up 11.11% of that oil and oxygenated monoterpenes 7.17%. Two Lithuanian oils of the species contained trans-thujone at 8.9% and 10.9%. Mugwort is sometimes called wormwood, but wormwood, Artemisia absinthium, is a separate species of Artemisia. In a comparison of oils from Serbia, trans-thujone (18.9%) was found in the oil of A. absinthium but was not detected in the oil of A. vulgaris.

Uses

Before hops came into beer-making, A. vulgaris was commonly used in England as the flavouring agent. Dried mugwort flowers were added to malt liquor, and the malt liquor was added to the beer. Mugwort has also been one of the traditional flavouring and bittering agents of gruit ales, a type of unhopped, fermented grain beverage. In Germany mugwort is used in cooking as an aromatic herb. The dried leaves can be smoked or made into a tea, to promote lucid dreaming.

Handling

Contact with the plant is thought to cause dermatitis.

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Related: Alpha Pinene · Angelica · Angelica Root · Angelica Root Oil · Artemisia · Barrenwort · Beachheather · Behini Tree