Artemisia annua, also known as sweet wormwood, sweet annie, sweet sagewort, annual mugwort or annual wormwood (Chinese: 黄花蒿; pinyin: huánghuāhāo), is a common type of wormwood native to temperate Asia, but naturalized in many countries including scattered parts of North America.An extract of A. annua, called artemisinin (or artesunate), is a medication used to treat malaria. Discovery of artemisinin and its antimalarial properties by the Chinese scientist, Tu Youyou, led to award of the 2011 Lasker Prize and 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. Description Artemisia annua belongs to the plant family of Asteraceae and is an annual short-day plant. Its stem is erect brownish or violet brown. The plant itself is hairless and naturally grows from 30 to 100 cm tall, although in cultivation it is possible for plants to reach a height of 200 cm. The leaves of A. annua have a length of 3–5 cm and are divided by deep cuts into two or three small leaflets. The...