Artemisia Absinthium Seeds (Wormwood Seeds)

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 a hard, woody rhizome. 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 is an ingredient in the spirit absinthe, and also used for flavouring in some other spirits and wines, including bitters, vermouth and pelinkovac. In the Middle Ages, it was used to spice mead. In 18th century England, wormwood was sometimes used instead of hops in beer. Wormwood is the traditional colour and flavour agent for green songpyeon (a type of dduk/tteok, or steamed dumpling/'cookie' made of fine rice flour), eaten during the Korean thanksgiving festival of chuseok in the autumn. Wormwood is picked in the spring when it is still young. The juice from macerated fresh (or reconstituted dry) leaves provides the colouring and flavouring ingredient in the dough prepared to make green songpyeon. The other traditional color for these small desserts is white, made with rice flour dough without wormwood extract. It is also an additional ingredient to mint tea in Moroccan tea culture.