Lemon Balm

Lemon Balm, from the Plant Melissa officinalis, is also called Balm Mint, Bee Balm, Blue Balm, Dropsy plant, Garden Balm, Melissa, and Sweet Balm. Melissa is Greek for 'honey bee' as it is a favorite flower of bees. The medicinal parts include the above-the-ground herb, and the leaves. Lemon Balm is a perennial plant that is common in the Mediterranean area and the Near East, but is also naturalized in some places in the US. Mostly, it is cultivated as a culinary herb, but it grows wild in fields and gardens and along roadsides. The stem is upright, hairy, quadrangular, and branched, and grows as high as 3 feet. The leaves are opposite, ovate, long-pertoiled, somewhat hairy, bluntly serrate, and acuminate. The bilabiate flowers grow in axillary clusters, and may vary in color from pale yellow to rose colored or blue-white. The flowering time is July and August. When bruised, the whole plant smells like lemon.

Lemon Balm has been used as an antispasmodic, calmative, carminative, diaphoretic, emmenagogue, and stomachic. Lemon Balm is a widely-used remedy for common female complaints, and is useful for all sorts of nervous problems, including hysteria, melancholy and insomnia. Balm tea has been used to relieve cramps, dyspepsia, flatulence, colic, chronic bronchial catarrh, and some forms of asthma. Lemon Balm has also been used in the past for migraine and toothache, and, during pregnancy, for headaches and dizziness.

The warm infusion has diaphoretic effects. An infusion of the leaves added to bath water is also said to promote the onset of menstruation. The crushed leaves can be used as a poultice for sores, tumors, milk-knots, and insect bites. Balm is also used in herb pillows because of its agreeable odor.

Lemon Balm has the ability to help heal wounds, ease indigestion, relieve menstrual cramps, fight cold sores (herpes simplex), relax nerves, soothe minor wounds & insect stings, help prevent sleeplessness - and even repel mosquitoes. Bees love this lemon-scented herb, which is what earned it the nicknames of 'lemon balm' and 'melissa' (from the Greek for "bee"). But its fragrance is nothing compared with its many and varied medicinal properties, earning it another hsitoric nickname - "Cure-All".

Modern research backs up many of balm's observed healing powers. "Various small-scale laboratory studies in Germany have demonstrated that its leaves contain compounds with sedative, digestive and anti-spasmodic effects", says Varro E. Tyler, Ph.D., Professor of Pharmacognosy at Purdue University School of Pharmacy in West Lafayette, Indiana, and author of "The Honest Herbal". Although Lemon Balm has just recently made its mark in American medicine, it's been highly valued by herbal practitioners in Western Europe for some 2,000 years. Balm was considered a must-have plant for Elizabethan herb gardens, and over the centuries it's been a popular home remedy for a host of common ailments.

Past topical applications of Lemon Balm have included its use as a compress for swellings such as gout; also applied to eczema and headaches; and use as a poultice for boils. Lemon Balm is made into facial toners and beauty lotions. It is an ingredient in Carmelite water. Use as a salve for insect bites or simply rub the fresh leaf on the afflicted area. The essential oil is diluted and applied to herpes lesions and shingles. Used in sachets to repel moths. Used as a bath herb, massage oil, and perfume.

Lemon Balm also has several historical culinary uses: add to fish and poultry dishes, marinades, pesto, salad greens, jellies, custards, and garnishes; or simply put a sprig into drinking water to give it a lemony lift.  It has also been used in vinegars, liqueurs (Benedictine, Chartreuse) and cordials. The dried leaves are not as flavorful as when they are fresh.

This is a safe herb for children, and it tastes very good.