Mugwort

Artemisia vulgaris

Asteraceae

The roadside Artemisia of dream pillows and roast goose — a bitter with a long folklore and a thujone limit.

Culinary bitter and traditional dream herb. Contains thujone — not a daily pot, not in pregnancy. Distinct from wormwood (A. absinthium).

Parts used: Leaf · Flowering tops
Traditional notes: Kitchen bitter with fat meat · Traditional dream-pillow folklore · After a heavy meal
Grow · USDA 6b: Perennial, USDA 3–9. A colonizer. A root shard or a packet. You may already have it in the lane. In work: Jun · Jul · Aug · Sep
Harvest: Tops as they flower, morning, before they dust pollen everywhere.

The underside of the leaf is silver. That is the field test.
A pinch, not a haystack.
Keep it out of the herb bed or it will be the herb bed.

Safety

Pregnancy A daily mugwort kettle Seizure disorder

Lore

Roman soldiers were said to put it in their sandals for the march; the name may be ‘mug’ as in beer, or moth, or the old English moughte. St. John’s Eve bunches of it hung on doors. In Japan a sister species is mochi filling and moxa. The dream-pillow reputation is later English folklore that never quite died.

The Herbarium — a teaching catalog, not a clinic. Traditional use is history, not a prescription. USDA 6b dates are a week either way, not a promise. Do not eat, drink, or harvest a plant you cannot name.