Artemisia absinthium L. is a medicinal and aroma
tic bi
tter herb frequen
tly used in
tradi
tional medicine as an
timicrobial agen
t since ancien
t times. The impor
tan
t ac
tive cons
ti
tuen
ts, essen
tial oil and bi
tter subs
tances have a
ttrac
ted
the in
teres
t of several researchers and producers
throughou
t the world. The use of
this herb as a source of na
tural produc
ts and
the alcoholic beverage absin
the has recen
tly experienced a revival af
ter a period of prohibi
tion. The composi
tion of
the essen
tial oil exhibi
ts a large in
traspecific variabili
ty. Besides
the mos
t well known β-
thujone, a
t leas
t 17 o
ther major compounds were described in
the oil, among o
thers myrcene, sabinene, sabinyl ace
ta
te, epoxyocimene, chrysan
thenol, chrysan
thenyl ace
ta
te, e
tc. Un
til now, bo
th “pure” chemo
types and “mixed” chemo
types have been defined. Drugs origina
ting from differen
t regions of
ten show grea
t variabili
ty in quali
ty. Never
theless, mos
t references
do no
t charac
terize correc
tly
the source of
the plan
t ma
terial,
therefore i
t is difficul
t to divide
the roles of
the geno
type and o
ther influencing fac
tors.
The essential oil composition might change also during the ontogenesis, nevertheless there are only a few samples investigated in different chemotypes. The thujones seem to be varying during the vegetation period, as well. Although the organic differences have only scarcely been investigated, it seems that monoterpenes predominate in aerial parts, while the essential oil of the roots shows characteristically high ratios of monoterpenic and aliphatic esters. The role of environmental effects on the composition of wormwood oil needs further confirming data. Compared to hydrodistillation, other extraction methods resulted in significantly different compositions. According to some references, even the presence of thujones could be influenced by the extraction method.