Artemisia

With beautiful silver foliage or narrow fern-like leaves, these plants are perfectly suited to a hot dry garden, or one by the seaside. Foliage is often very scented and has various culinary uses. A. dracunculus is the herb tarragon, or French tarragon, A. absinthium, wormwood, is used to flavour 'verte absinthe', a strong spirit. For much of the 20th century it was banned in Europe and the US due to its possible harmful effects!

The flowers of most species are wind-pollinated, so the main value of artemisias to wildlife is that, despite the presence of strongly-scented chemicals designed to deter herbivores, their leaves do form the main food source for a number of specialist moth larvae, such as the aptly-named wormwood shark. Otherwise, there are several aphids that eat them, and of course these provide food for beneficial predators such as ladybirds.