In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O’Hara’s Mother Margaret Mitchell states that Lemon Verbena is her favorite scent. I absolutely don't care about this fact at all - I'm not a Gone with the Wind fan, but I do love lemon verbena and it's one of the first plants I planted in our garden. Although lemon verbena can suffer in the frost, it's tucked next to a wall and in between other plants, so it does really well, although the hops does threaten to strangle it.

Both are plants I use to de-stress in a chillaxing tea. I love the way two powerful plants that are known for their relaxing properties interwine each other like lovers in the late summer - and it makes for a very heady smell in that corner of the garden indeed.

I went hunting in the garden for Lemon Verbena today as I've been really jittery and stressed over this last week, and I've even quit coffee for a while to reset my adrenals. I need something to calm me down and an alternative to caffeine.

Lemon Verbena or Aloysia citrodora, also know as bee's balm or beebrush, originated in South America. It's part of the Verbenaceae family that's native to Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Bolivia.

Agrarian Home writes of it's history:

Philibert Commerson, a French botanist who first publicly recorded this plant collected it in Buenos Aires on his botanical explorations with Louis Antoine de Bougainville (yes, the man for whom Bougainvillea is named), about 1785. The plant had already been quietly imported directly into the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, where professors Casimiro Gómez Ortega and Antonio Palau y Verdera named it, though they did not publish it, Aloysia citrodora, to compliment the morganatic wife of the Garden’s patron Infante Luis Antonio de Borbon, Prince of Asturias and brother of King Carlos III.

Other botanists with collections from Spanish America struggled: when French botanist Joseph Dombey landed his imports at Cadiz in southwestern Spain in 1785 they were impounded and left to die in warehouses. Officials refused permission even to have seeds planted. Of the plants Dombey had assembled during eight years at Lima, his Lemon Verbena survived.

Palau y Verdera’s earliest recording was completely disregarded, and when the plant became popular throughout southern Spain as Yerba Luisa it was connected, even in print, with the more prominent personage Maria Luisa, Queen of Spain.

Casimiro Gómez Ortega sent seeds and samples of the plant to Charles Louis L’Héritier de Brutelle in Paris. From Paris John Sibthorpe, professor of Botany at Oxford, obtained the specimen that he introduced to British horticulture. By 1797 Lemon Verbena was common in greenhouses around London, and its popularity as essential in a fragrant bouquets, gathered in ladies handkerchiefs, and for medicinal purposes increased through the following century.

Although lacking the sharp acidity of lemons, lemon verbena has traditionally been used in desserts and drinks. You can use them in cooking fish or chicken, as it will impart a lemony taste. In my mind, there's no substitute for lemons in savoury cooking, but in sweet cooking I can see this leaf imparting a nice herbal delicacy. I read that bakers used to put the leaves in the pan under the pastry, peeling them out afterwards, and it would flavour it nicely. You can also steep the leaves in milk and use that milk in cakes or puddings. I can imagine it would be delicious in a lemony sorbet. The same can be done with sugar, leaving 6 - 10 leaves in until the flavour seeps through, or in olive oil.

Medicinally, lemon verbena is meant to be good for:

• easing tension and stress
• calming anxiety
• relieving indigestion and colic
• reducing fevers
• relaxing tired muscles
• ease asthma
• an expectoratn
• supportive of the liver (good for alcoholics)

There's no wonder I love this herb as it's cures are for many things I often suffer.

Earth magick too says that this plant is bound to the moon and water - being a Cancerian moon child I'm deeply sensitive and emotional so I really relate to verbena as it's symbolically meant to represent this sensitivity. It's meant to transmit messages between lovers, but I guess that's an energetic transferral that's bound to happen when you're relaxed and calm. It's meant to help ease the emotional pain of break ups, but this makes perfect sense too if it's medicinal qualities are benefical to anxiety and stress, which can be causes by this sort of pain and suffering. It's not magic so much but the real medicinal qualities of lemon verbena that create this feeling and mood. An aphrodisiac qualities it’s said to posess are clearly due to it's ability to relax and calm. No one's up for love when they're stressed!

I wish J. did like it – but he’s not a fan. I love breaking off twigs of verbena and dangling them into my bathwater - the scent is divine. As it's really close to my outdoor fire bath I do this quite often! I can’t do it if he’s jumping in though – it’s one of the rare occassions we beg to differ!

Lemon Verbena Destress Loving Tea

• Take 5 - 6 fresh or dried leaves and place inside an infuser or in a teapot for one.
• Steep for 5 minutes in boiling water
• Add lemon or honey to taste.

I'd also consider adding hops if you're really stressed, or perhaps some mint or chamomile.

I do love lemon verbena, but if I really want to get into a chillaxy sexy mood, I'm going to choose damiana every time, but that's for another post!

What recipes do you have for lemon verbena? What's your favourite de-stress tea?

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