Lemon Balm

Overview

Lemon balm is named twice for bees — Melissa is the Greek word for honeybee, and the genus was given that name because the plant, rubbed into a new hive, was believed to attract swarms and keep a colony settled. This belief was so widespread and so persistent across ancient Greece, Rome, the Arab world, and medieval Europe that it may carry more than folk truth in it: lemon balm is highly attractive to pollinators, and its volatile compounds — including citral, linalool, and geraniol — have been shown to mimic some of the pheromones bees use to signal nest sites. The plant knew its relationship with the bees before the humans noticed it. Lemon balm has a secondary reputation, which it has earned just as thoroughly: it calms. Anxiety, insomnia, herpes outbreaks, excessive thyroid activity — it has been reached for in all of these, and the research has been more consistent than most calming herbs manage.

Botanical Notes

A bushy, lemon-scented perennial reaching 40–80cm with ovate, crinkled, toothed leaves — very similar in form to other mints in the family but unmistakable by scent. Small, white to pale yellow flowers in whorls at the leaf axils from June to October, extremely attractive to bees. Self-seeds freely and spreads by rhizome; can become dominant in a garden bed. Native to the eastern Mediterranean and central Asia; naturalised throughout Europe and North America. The essential oil contains citral, geraniol, and linalool — the compounds responsible for its distinctive lemon scent and much of its medicinal activity.

Lore & History

Paracelsus called lemon balm the "elixir of life" and believed it could revive the dead — a claim that says more about his enthusiasm than his precision, but reflects the herb's reputation for remarkable vitality. Avicenna recommended it to "make the heart merry." The Carmelite nuns of Paris distilled it with angelica, lemon peel, and spices into Eau de Mélisse des Carmes — a digestive tonic and smelling salt sold from 1611 and still available today. John Evelyn, the seventeenth-century diarist and garden writer, wrote that lemon balm "driven into the brain" — by which he meant inhaled — "expels melancholy." Thomas Jefferson grew it at Monticello. It has been continuously cultivated in European physic gardens for at least two thousand years without ever losing its place.

Warnings