Artemisia, one of the larger genera in the family Asteraceae comprises from 200 to more than 500 taxa. It was known for its therapeutic and medicinal properties, and was used in both traditional and modern medicine. The antimicrobial properties of essential oils obtained by hydrodistillation from the aerial parts of the plant were determined using the disk diffusion method on agar towards seven bacterial species: Staphylococcus aureus (ATCC 25923), Pseudomonas aeruginosa (ATCC 27853), E coli (ATCC 25922) and Enterobacter cloacae (ESBL), Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), Klebsiella pneumoniae and Pseudomonas aeruginosa MBL. Essential oil yield was about 0.526%. The antibacterial assay showed a good activity against different microorganisms. Candida albicans and Gram-positive bacteria were more sensitive than Gram negatives ones. The present study demonstrated that Artemisia herba-alba appears to be effective against all the tested bacteria. Therefore, it deserves to be exploited by pharmaceutical and food industry.
