All of the wormwoods and nettles are dye plants, so may have been collected for those purposes? The wormwoods are also used in medicine, magic, brewing and as digestives and bitter tonics (not to mention being used in such products as vermouth and absinthe, which derive their names from local names for those plants. The European alpine or black wormwood, Artemisia genipi, is also a famous brewing herb.
Some members of the family are culinary herbs, notably tarragon and mugwort. I can remember my gran teaching me to add a sprig of mugwort to the water when cooking dried peas or beans, which was supposed to make them easier to digest and certainly improved the flavour.
The wormwoods are also used in veterinary medicine, and I have a low hedge of wormwood growing through the fence of my poultry yard so the birds may peck at it to control intestinal worms and other parasites, plus I add the dried plant to their bedding to repel fleas and lice, for which purpose it is also dried and added to the bedding of dogs and other livestock. When I lived on an old farm where the vegetable garden was only separated from a grazing field by a low fence, the sheep, cattle and horses that passed through it at various times all used to like to munch on the wormwood plant on my side of the fence, probably also for parasite control, the stuff tastes bitter.
And as I’m sure you know, all the wormwoods are used in cleansing and protective magic, and medicinally as vermifuges, febrifuges and digestive remedies for humans.
Lad’s Love, Artemisia abrotanum, has that name for the twofold reason that it was a popular ingredient in courtship bouquets and because young men used it as a local application to treat acne and to encourage their beards to grow, which young women of the time would have considered attractive.
Nettle is of course edible as well as yielding dyes and being used as a tea. I make nettle beer and sometimes if I have enough of the young tips, use them cooked in the same way as spinach. The plant is very rich in iron and other nutrients, and has medicinal uses as a tonic and diuretic. One old friend, who was a Northumbrian singer/songwriter and musician, used to ‘nettle her fingers’ every morning in her old age, by brushing her hands through her large bed of nettles. She came from an old farming family back in Europe, and said that it was something she learned from the old folk of her family back when she was a girl. However it worked, the practice allowed her to maintain enough mobility in her very gnarled and arthritic hands that she was able to keep playing her musical instruments until she died well into her 80s.
That is all I have time for at present, I have to do outside tasks until dark, but if you are curious I can tell you more about the uses and folklore of those other plants later.
