Artemisia maritima is a European species of wormwood known as sea wormwood and old woman. It is native to France, the United Kingdom, Italy, Belgium, Germany, Denmark, Sweden and Russia. In its many variations of form it has an extremely wide distribution in the northern hemisphere of the Old World, occurring mostly in saltish soils. It is found in the salt marshes of the British Isles, on the coasts of the Baltic, of France and the Mediterranean, and on saline soils in Hungary; thence it extends eastwards, covering immense tracts in Southern Russia, the region of the Caspian Sea and Central Siberia to Chinese Mongolia. In Britain it is found as far as Wigton on the West and Aberdeen on the East; also in north-east Ireland and in the Channel Islands. It can be also found in Italy, on the N