ISSUE 3, HERBS, Part 2: Southernwood

Fragrance of Love

Southernwood 

Two hundred years ago when the stench, crowding, and shadowy streets of Europe’s cities drove new residents from the country into despair, they comforted themselves with a window box of greenery.  Chief among the plants was Southernwood , the fragrant Artemesia abrotatum.  Its feathery greenery radiated perfume. It tolerated shade and rough handling.  And it was easily propagated by cuttings.  Though its commonest name pointed to its native place, in southern Eurasia and Africa, the sweet odor inspired a multitude of other names:  lad’s love, maiden’s ruin, God’s shrub (in Russia), old man.  Its hardiness extended to a tolerance for chill that enabled it to be planted in Scotland and all of the continental United States. 

            The verdant and pleasing fragrance of the plant—derived from the action of oil pores on the hair like leaves—led many herbalists and apothecaries of earlier centuries to impute healing powers to the plant.  If you incinerated the plant, its ashes, mixed with linseed oil rubbed on the scalp cured baldness, according to herbalist Nicholas Culpepper. (Hence the plant’s nickname “Old Man.”)  Decoctions of the leaves were a common fever tea. In the folk medicine of the South a tea of Mugwort, Southernwood, and Pennyroyal was administered to persons suffering “female complaints.” The Pennyroyal countered the bitter taste of Southernwood. Breathing the aroma was thought to counter asthma, so it was found in many of the clutch bouquets that women carried with them in churches, courts, and assemblies.  Well into the nineteenth century it was the invariable companion of older women in the pews of English churches and Scottish kirks because it canceled “old people smell.” 

            The exhudations of southernwood’s oil did have measurable efficacies in certain employments. It would drive moths away and protect clothing. The oil could stain wool yellow. Given its powers and perceived powers, Southernwood accompanied the first European colonists of the Western Hemisphere and it grew in gardens from Portsmouth to Brunswick, Georgia before the founding of the United States.  With the plant came the myths—the magical potencies hinted at in the names Lad’s Love and Maiden’s Ruin.

            Southernwood was plant involved in love magic.  If a girl hides a twig of Southernwood down her back, she will marry the first boy she meets.  Or if she places a stalk of Southernwood under a pillow, she will dream of her true beloved.  (In New England sticking a twig in one’s shoe will have a similar result.)  Identifying the beloved leads to compelling the boy’s attention.  Southernwood gave a girl the radiance of the knowledge of her own desirability and could compel the attention of the fated boy.  Hence the name “Lad’s Love.” These powers only worked on girls in their teens.  Southernwood would not have similar effects with mature women.   Perhaps this dimension of the myth derives from ancient Greece, for Artemis, the goddess (Diana is another name) for whom the family of plants to which Southernwood belongs, was the divine caretaker of adolescent girls; indeed Greek girls sacrificed their hair on Artemis’s altar when they married.  Because girls cease to be maidens when they marry, Artemisia abrotatum was also called “Maiden’s Ruin.” Artemis defended chaste fertility.

            I was curious to seed what the old “Language of Flowers” manuals said about the meaning of Southernwood if displayed, or given from one person to another.  Surprisingly it meant “Jest.  Bantering.” 

            Southernwood is perennial and will grow to four feet height in most of the United States. The leaves are silver green and feathery in texture, dotted with glassy small oil pores.  The oil contains thujone (up to 70%) or 1,8-cineol (up to 60%). Minor components are fenchene, sabinene, α-caryo­phyllene and β-caryo­phyllene. Further­more, oil of southern­wood is charac­terized by the hetero­cyclic sesqi­terpenoids davanol, davanone and hydroxy­davanone.

Several strains of Southernwood are now available on the herb market.  The oldest strain has a pronounced lemony scent. The newer strain tends toward camphor.  Both have had culinary applications as a scenting agent. 

            Where can you get the traditional strain:  Monticello’s Plant Shop offers it. I’ve reproduced the image they have of the lemon scented old strain of Southernwood: https://www.monticelloshop.org/southernwood-artemisia-abrotanum/†††