Talk:Tarragon

Russian tarragon
Russian tarragon (L. artemisia dracunculoides) often sets seed, and is usually propagated from seed as a consequence. French tarragon, on the other hand, _very_ rarely sets seed; hence, it is usually propagated by division. So: beware of "tarragon seed" - it is almost inevitably of the inferior form!

See: "Herbs and spices", by Tom Stobart ...

Quote?
The following quote seems so out of place as to appear almost like vandalism. If it's authentic, it should be placed somewhere more appropriate in the article. Personally, I don't think it adds any value to the article at all.---Puff (talk) 09:26, 6 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "I believe that if ever I had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough tarragon around." --James Beard
 * A quick Google suggests that it is authentic. You can always be bold and remove it.--Curtis Clark (talk) 12:47, 6 August 2008 (UTC)

Joking ?
That stuff about Germans -er, German tarragon encroaching on French tarragon, and driving it underground sounds like a sly, WWii-era reference to me... I can't find any web-based (non-wikipedia or it's many mirrors) references to this. Can anyone confirm it's veracity? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.55.67.185 (talk) 11:41, 12 July 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Removed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.62.184.147 (talk) 03:19, 16 July 2010 (UTC)

Names for tarragon and its varieties
Tarragon and its varieties have a number of different names. In the sources I consulted, there seems to be a consensus that the variety

"French tarragon" has the scientific name "Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa". For the variety "Russian tarragon", I found two different

names. I have not found a reliable source for the scientific name of the species "tarragon". Does anyone know which are the "right" names for

both varieties and the species, or does anyone have a trustworthy list of widely used names?

source 1 [Missouri Botanical Garden]:

Searching the plant database of the Missouri Botanical Garden returns two results for "common name = tarragon":

Artemisia dracunculus = wild tarragon

Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa = French tarragon

Link to page in Internet Archive, accessed Jan. 7th 2015

source 2 [a webpage from the University of Illinois]:

Artemisia dracunculus dracunculoides = Russian tarragon

Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa = French tarragon

Link to page in Internet Archive, accessed Jan. 7th 2015

source 3 [The American Herb Society]:

Artemisia dracunculus = Russian tarragon

Artemisia dracunculus var. sativa = French tarragon

Link to page in Internet Archive, accessed Jan. 7th 2015

source 4 [National Plant Germplasm System (GRIN)]:

GRIN just lists both "French tarragon" and "Russian tarragon" in the section "common names" for "Artemisia dracunculus L.".

Link to page itself (couldn't be archived); accessed Jan. 7th 2015

Anna Mayerhof (talk) 18:29, 7 January 2015 (UTC) [not an expert on the topic]

Name German
The use of Dragon in German is obsolete and German speakers would for the most part not recognize it as a German word for that use. Current plant and spice name is Estragon in German. I don't know whether dragon is still used in Swedish or Dutch. Someone should check on that. Seems the language source is obsolete. For German use please see Duden https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Estragon and https://www.duden.de/rechtschreibung/Dragon. I made an edit but it's clumsy because the sentence time frame is now skewed is used vs. old German. After the Dutch and Swedish usage has been researched and verified one could either change the time to used to be or separate German out from the other languages. 2600:1700:1C60:45E0:61A8:8775:8D7C:63A (talk) 07:38, 14 November 2021 (UTC)
 * According to the Dutch and Swedish Wikipedia pages Dragon is still in use in those two languages. It is marked as obsolete in the German page "veraltet".  - A quick unofficial poll among native German speaker friends verified my assumption that current generation German speaker don't recognize the word as that of the plant or herb. They assumed it had something to do with a horeman "Dragoner" or a dragon "Drache", the latter use probably borrowed from English.  Not a valid Wikipedia source, but the Duden is about as trusted a source as you can get for German language. --2600:1700:1C60:45E0:61A8:8775:8D7C:63A (talk) 07:58, 14 November 2021 (UTC)