Abandon Project (a brief adventure with tarragon)

When I started the research on tarragon (artemisia dracunculus) I had no idea what awaited me.  While it has been referred to in historical texts, there is little reference to its medicinal uses, only its usage in regional cooking, whihc is not my main focus.  I am not one to let good research to go to waste, so here is what I found.

the names, and thus the origin, of this herb was the first hurdle.  Artemisia is a large family (including plants such as wormwood) and tarragon is often confused with mugwort (artemisia vulgaria), and there are two varieties of it: French (artemisia dracunculus ) and Russian (artemisia dracunculoides).  The commonly accepted theory of the origin of tarragon's name is as follows "The name Tarragon is a corruption of the French Esdragon, derived from the Latin Dracunculus (a little dragon), which also serves as its specific name. It was sometimes called little Dragon Mugwort and in French has also the name Herbe au Dragon."(http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/t/tarrag07.html).  This gives a good reason why there was the belief that tarragon would heal bites from mad dogs and venomous creatures.

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The original spark for this research was a medieval Spanish recipe from (http://www.medievalspanishchef.com/).  While food recipes can aid in determining a time and place for herbs, this did me little to no good.  Another medieval Spanish recipe book (written in Catalan) mentioned  that it came to Europe in the 16th century but that there is little mention of it in historical texts (Cuina medieval catalana: història, dietètica i cuina by Eliana Thibaut i Comalada).  So there was not a lot of headway on the food front, ok, moving on to herbal sources.   

Nothing in De Materia Medica...odd...but ok.

Botanical.com has an entry, perfect, all is not lost.  Used to cool the heat of other herbs in salads...not really what I was looking for.

No mention of it in Culpeper or Bingen...alright, I can take a hint.

Onto the Medieval Herbalism board on FaceBook.

Gerard's Herbal, sweet a new resource!  Interesting origin story "the seed of flax put into a radish or a sea onion [squill] and set int the ground will bring forth this herb", but otherwise the same information I already had.

So due to the lack of information on tarragon, I have no choice but to abandon the project.  I got a list of new resources to add to my collection, so not all is lost.

Sources

Cuina medieval catalana: història, dietètica i cuina by Eliana Thibaut i Comalada  

The Magic Teaspoon by Victoria Zak

The Meaning of Herbs: Myth, Language and Lore by Gretchen Scoble and Ann Field

Plant Names from the Leechbook of Bald  http://wyrtig.com/EarlyPlants/LeechbookPlants.htm

The herball, or, Generall historie of plantes https://archive.org/stream/herballorgeneral00gera?hc_location=ufi#page/248/mode/2up