Mugwort

Description

This species is also occasionally known as riverside wormwood, felon herb, chrysanthemum weed, wild wormwood, old Uncle Henry, sailor’s tobacco, naughty man, old man or St. John’s plant. Mugworts are perennial plants and have been used as traditional herbal medicine for pain relief, treatment of fever and used as a diuretic agent. Traditionally, it was, and is, used as one of the flavouring and bittering agents of gruit ales, a type of non-hopped, fermented grain beverage.

Common mugwort plants grow to approximately 1.2 metres tall and can be found quite commonly throughout the UK particularly in coastal areas of Scotland. An aromatic herb, leaf extracts in mugwort tea are said to have a calming effect – it is rich in antioxidant activity, and is said to have a wide range of health benefits and healing properties.