Artemisia annua

Also known as Artemisia annua L. (Linnaeus)

species of plant

OverviewAI-generated

Artemisia annua, commonly known as sweet wormwood, sweet sagewort, or sweet annie, is a species of plant in the family Asteraceae. It belongs to the genus Artemisia and is classified within the order Asterales and class Magnoliopsida. This annual, herbaceous plant produces achenes and serves as the source of artemisinin. Its uses include brewing, food, fodder, and as a medicinal plant.

The taxon range includes China, Beijing, the Tibetan Plateau, and Shanghai. Records from various databases indicate its presence in the United States and China, with occurrence data held by institutions such as NY, UCSC, CAS, MICH, and CM. Seeds of Artemisia annua are held in Kew's Millennium Seed Bank.

Synthesized by Vinony from 48 facts across 10 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, iNaturalist, PubMed, Gbif Occ, Encyclopedia of Life, Plants of the World, WoRMS, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

sweet annie

SPECIES

KingdomPlantae
PhylumTracheophyta
ClassMagnoliopsida
OrderAsterales
FamilyAsteraceae

Native toAfghanistan, Algeria, Altay, Amur, Borneo, Bulgaria, Buryatiya, Central European Russia, China North-Central, China South-Central, China Southeast, Chita

Observations7,767

Observations recorded24,581

Chile Central

via GBIF · Kew POWO

Museum specimens

Specimen records: 2,370
With media: 1,977
Family: Asteraceae
Collections: NY, UCSC, CAS, MICH, CM, YPM
Recorded in: United States, China

iDigBio →

Research

1,827 papers

Artemisia annua, a Traditional Plant Brought to Light.International journal of molecular sciences · 2020
The role and mechanism of Artemisia annua L. in cancer treatment.Journal of ethnopharmacology · 2025
Artemisia annua-sublingual immunotherapy: First step to cross the chasm.Allergy · 2021
Artemisia annua ZFP8L regulates glandular trichome development.Physiologia plantarum · 2024
Engineering Nootkatone Biosynthesis in Artemisia annua.ACS synthetic biology · 2021

via PubMed

Wikidata facts

Instance of: taxon
Subclass of: shrub
Parent taxon: Artemisia
Image: Artemisia annua(01).jpg
Has use: fiber

Show 11 more facts

taxon rank: species
taxon name: Artemisia annua
Commons category: Artemisia annua
GRIN URL: npgsweb.ars-grin.gov/gringlobal/taxonomydetail.aspx?id=4275
taxon common name: enoletni pelin
Commons gallery: Artemisia annua
has fruit type: achene
this taxon is source of: artemisinin
taxon range: Zhoushan Archipelago
short name: A. annua
taxon author citation: L.

Sources (7)

via Wikidata · CC0

~10 min read

Encyclopedic overview

Artemisia annua, also known as sweet wormwood, sweet annie, sweet sagewort, annual mugwort or annual wormwood, is a common type of wormwood native to temperate Asia, but naturalized in many countries including scattered parts of North America.

The chemical compound artemisinin, which is isolated from A. annua, is a medication used to treat malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum, the deadliest species of malarial parasite. Discovery of artemisinin and its antimalarial properties made the Chinese scientist Tu Youyou recipient of the 2011 Lasker Prize and 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Artemisia annua” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.