What Happened to Rosemary?

Rosemary is a sun-loving plant of the rocky areas along the Mediterranean Sea, from the south of Spain into the Middle East. Her leaves are long and fragrant, her flowers a beautiful purple. Long ago humans found her scent calming and the oils in her leaves a fine flavoring. She had two close relatives, sisters you might say, but they grew only in local areas near her, while rosemary herself was carried around the world by humans. (See previous blog about rosemary link).

But one day, in 2015, botanists sent rosemary's DNA off to the botanical equivalent AncestryDNA and when the results came back, they were shocking.

Plant Confusions: Garden Sage and Sagebrush are Different

garden sage, Salvia officinalis

big sagebrush, Artemisia tridentata

Sometimes two plants with the same name are quite different. 

     I still remember my surprise, years ago, when I realized garden sage and prairie sages were unrelated.

    The culinary herb, sage, sometimes called garden sage for clarity, Salvia officinalis, is from Europe. Although it doesn’t taste or smell minty, you can call it a mint because it is in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is related to a host of important culinary herbs, not just clary sage, spearmint and peppermint, but also plants as diverse as lemon balm, catnip and oregano. 

garden sage with flowers