Native to the Mediterranean region, lemon balm has been cultivated for herbal healing for more than 2,000 years. It’s Latin name of Melissa, is derived from the Greek word for bee. The ancient Greek author Pliny the Elder and John Gerard a 16th-century both observed that lemon balm is useful in attracting and keeping bees. Officinalis refers to its place in the official apothecary. The common name ‘‘balm’’ is shortened from balsam.
Lemon balm is one of over 3000 members of the mint family of plants. The plants healing powers were well known throughout history. Dioscorides, an ancient Greek physician used the leaves steeped in wine to treat snakebites and scorpion stings. In 1931, Maud Grieve wrote in her book, A Modern Herbal,
It is now recognized as a scientific fact that the balsamic oils of aromatic plants make excellent surgical dressings: they give off ozone and thus exercise anti-putrescent effects. Being chemical hydrocarbons, they contain so little oxygen that in wounds dressed with the fixed balsamic herbal oils, the atomic germs of disease are starved out, and the resinous parts of these balsamic oils, as they dry upon the sore or wound, seal it up and effectually exclude all noxious air.
Lemon balm’s history, popularity and use continued through the years. Today, lemon balm is now found in both England and North America. It was brought by colonialists who had come to rely on it for teas and flavoring. Thomas Jefferson’s gardens were filled with lemon balm for both it’s medicinal healing benefits, but also it’s culinary usefulness.
