LEMON VERBENA
Aloysia triphylla (Lippia citriodora)
What is lemon verbena? It is an herb that has many uses which can be taken internally and is healing and refreshing. Its sweet, strongly lemon-flavored leaves blend well with most other tea herbs. Leaves enhance all drinks, salads, jellies, sauces, soups, fish or meat dishes and desserts which call for lemon as an ingredient or a garnish.
In cooking, Use anywhere you want to add a lemony taste. Lemon Verbena makes tasty tea both by itself and in combination with other herbs.
It can be steeped in milk and added to puddings, ice creams, sorbets or any baked goodies calling for milk.
Ancient Greek mythology states that if you want to have sweet dreams, put the dried leaves in your pillow just before you go to sleep. The dried leaves have also been used in herbal medicine for relieving nervous disorders as well as in mixtures to help with skin problems. You can also use fresh or dried leaves to make an herbal tea. The tea has been used to treat fevers, relieve indigestion, and as a sedative. Like lemonade, it makes a refreshing tea during the hot summer months. The fresh leaves have been used in a hot bath to relieve achy muscles. .
Lemon Verbena is an herb that is actually a small tree instead of a flowering plant. It has been known to grow up to 15 feet during the summer months during which time its small flowers (which are pale lavender in color) are clustered on the tips of its branches amid the leaves. The light green leaves bears oil leaving the leaf surface to be sticky to the touch. This oil also produces a lemony fragrance on its own and is also released in abundance when the leaves are stroked or brushed.
Lemon Verbena likes warm moist conditions with plenty of sunlight. In frost free areas, it is an evergreen perennial. When exposed to frost, it becomes deciduous. Mature plants well mulched in the field can survive brief temperatures as low as 6 degrees, at which point it becomes herbaceous (dies back to the ground).
