166 COMPOSITE 



bitter principle. The distilled water of this species, called Eaii d'Ahsinth', 

 is used in Switzerland as a condiment to various kinds of food, and also as a 

 liqueur. It becomes milky when water is mingled with it, and it is a common 

 practice to drink small quantities of this liquid with tokay. The seeds of 

 this wormwood are used by rectifiers of British spirits, and those who suffer 

 the consequences of indulging in too luxurious a diet find its renovating and 

 tonic powers of much service ; hence a preparation of the plant known as 

 Creme d' Absinthe is in great request among epicures. The plant is also 

 occasionally steeped in wine, a practice which is thought to have been derived 

 from the ancients, who mingled wormwood in their luscious wines or used it 

 before or after drinking them, in order to counteract their effect. The seeds 

 are also employed in Scotland by the distillers of whisky, and the flowers 

 have been sometimes used in making malt liquors. The beverage called purl 

 is said to be also seasoned with wormwood. Pieces of wormwood are often 

 hung up in cottages to drive away insects ; and the old lines on the subject 

 may be praised for their useful advice, if not for their elegance :^ 



" While wormwood hath seede get a handful or twaine, 

 To save against March, to make them refraine ; 

 "Where chamber is sweeped, and Wormwood is throwne, 

 No flea for his life dare abide to be knowne." 



The Common Southernwood of the garden, which we so seldom see in 

 flower in this country, is the Artemisia ahrotana of the soiith of Europe. Its 

 strong odour renders it so obnoxious to insects, that country people often 

 place it in their chests and drawers to keep away moth. Hence the French 

 call the plant Garde-robe; and its medical virtues were once thought so 

 valuable, that its specific name is derived from the Greek words signifying 

 preservative of life. Artemisia dracunculus is the Estrarjon of the French, the 

 Dragon of the German, and the Tarragon of the English. Its young shoots 

 form an excellent pickle, and are used to flavour fish sauces and vinegar. 



We read in Scripture of the "wormwood and the gall" as types of bitter- 

 ness of spirit, of anguish or remorse, but none of our British wormwoods 

 are among the wild flowers of Palestine. Three species, however, grow 

 there by the waysides and in fields, as some of ours do, and the Judsean 

 Wormwood [A. juddica), which occurs in great plenty in the neighbourhood 

 of Bethlehem, is most likely to be the plant intended by the prophet 

 Jeremiah, when he declared that those who had forsaken the law of the 

 Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, should be fed with wormwood, and have 

 water of gall to drink. The common Garden Southernwood, which is a 

 small shrub with us, grows to a large size in the Holy Land, bearing its 

 nodding yellow flowers in profusion ; and the Artemisia romana has been 

 observed by botanists on Mount Tabor, but being neither so general nor so 

 powerfully bitter, is less likely to be the plant which served as a figure for 

 the Scripture writers. 



On some parts of the American prairies, as on the Steppes of the Missouri, 

 a species of Wormwood {A. gnaphaloides) is most abundant ; all other plants 

 are far surpassed in number by this, which is spread nearly over the whole 

 district, and often, together with the prairie grass, covers wide tracts almost 

 exclusively. 



