• Lavender


• Sea Lavender

Scientific Name

• The common lavender: Lavandula angustifolia (formerly L. Officinalis)


• Lavenders : (Lavandula) are a genus of 39 species of flowering plant in the mint family.
  

History

The ancient Greeks called the lavender herb nardus, after the Syrian city of Naarda. It was also commonly called nard.

Lavender was one of the holy herbs used in the biblical Temple to prepare the holy essence, and nard is mentioned in the Song of Solomon (4,14),

nard and saffron,

calamus and cinnamon,

with every kind of incense tree,

with myrrh and aloes,

and all the finest spices.

During Roman times, flowers were sold for 100 denarii per pound, which was about the same as a month's wages for a farm labourer, or fifty haircuts from the local barber.

Lavender was commonly used in Roman baths to scent the water, and it was thought to restore the skin. Its late Latin name was lavandārius, from lavanda (things to be washed), from the verb lavāre (to wash). When the Roman Empire conquered southern Britain, the Romans introduced lavender.

Plant description

Several species are shrubby or climbing forms or, rarely, small trees.

Lavender has grayish foliage and small blue or pale purplish flowers (white in one variety).

It is a heavily branched short shrub that grows to a height of roughly 60 centimeters.

Its broad rootstock bears woody branches with erect, rod-like, leafy, green shoots.

A silvery down covers the gray-green narrow leaves, which are oblong and tapered, attached directly at the base, and curled spirally.

The oil in lavender's small, blue-violet flowers gives the herb its fragrant scent.

The flowers are arranged in spirals of 6 - 10 blossoms, forming interrupted spikes above the foliage.