I can't think of another plant that has as many names hung on it as this one. But then again, it's a plant that has more uses than most, too, so I guess it's fitting enough. I like to call it "sweetleaf", most Canadians and British types call it bergamot mint, or just plain bergamot, Americans seem to call it bee balm .. which is confusing, since we Canadians sometimes call lemon balm bee balm .. see? It's crazy!
Monarda is in the mint family, but it's not a minty mint like spearmint or peppermint. While it shares the minty mints' nifty combination of heating/cooling sensations, it often has a spicy taste that is more akin to that other cousin in the mint family, oregano, and in some cases, monarda has a buttery feel to the leaves that as far as I know is all its own.
(An aside - Yes, oregano is in the mint family; it's a very big family. If you find a plant with a square stem, it's in the mint family. It might not be minty, but it is a mint. Officially, the name of the clan is Lamiaceae, and it includes the pungent culinary herbs like oregano, rosemary, basil, sage etc., and some that are nasty tasting but wonderful medicinals like motherwort or selfheal.)
Monarda - there are two main species, fistulosa and didyma - is a meadow plant, native to North America. There are those who will tell you that the only truly wild version is the fistulosa, with blossoms a delicate purplish/pink. Then there are those who would argue that the didyma - a far more showy plant with scarlet blossoms you could see a mile off - is every bit as wild. That's a debate for the botanists, let's leave that to them.
Meanwhile, those clever folks the plant breeders have come up with hybrids galore, so that we can now buy monardas for our gardens in every hue from pale pink through all the shades of purple into scarlet. Garden centres are not the most reliable when it comes to labelling this plant correctly, so when you buy what they call a didyma, it's quite possible that as it grows out and you use it, you'll discover it to behave more like a fistulosa. Or vice versa.
There are further complications to the question of which monarda is which. I honestly don't know what species I have in my two patches because the plants behave differently from one year to the next. They really do seem very responsive to weather conditions, levels of soil fertility/moisture content and what their companion plants are.
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| monarda with bouncing bette (aka saponaria or soap root) |
For example - one of my monarda patches is in quite 'meadow like' conditions; it's a gently sloped area with lean soil in full sun. Well, it's really just a wildly overgrown bed that the previous owner thought would be a good rock garden (lol). It failed miserably as a rock garden, and I never could tame it into anything, so I've let it do what it wants. As it turned out, it wanted to be a meadow, and that's fine with me.
There the monarda is companioned by other meadow plants like various grasses, goldenrod, wild lilies and bouncing bette (the latter is not native but it is so well adapted to Canadian meadows it might as well be). Most of these, although not all, are fairly shallow rooted plants.
The more overgrown that bed gets, the more my monarda, supposedly a didyma and at one time deeply pink leaning towards red in colour, seems to be reverting to a more fistulosa colour and growth habit.
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| Same plant, showing leaf size. |
The monarda I'm showing in these two pictures makes a lovely mild tea, just fine if you only want it for its flavour. The leaves and flowers are both used, and it can be used fresh or dried. This one is especially nice as an infused honey - just stir blossoms into a jar of honey and let it sit and take on their flavour, delicious. That mildness makes it suitable medicinally for something like a gentle push to a slightly costive (constipated) system when you don't want to take an actual laxative. It would probably also be great if you wanted to produce a mild sweat - iced in summer to cool you off, or hot in winter to help break a mild fever.
Now here's my other monarda, sold to me as supposedly a fistulosa but I'm starting
to have my doubts about that.
Last year (the first year I grew it) the flowers were very similar to
those shown above. Now they're very different indeed!
This is another fairly chaotic, overgrown bed (all my beds are, medicinal plants do best when challenged) but it gets a bit more shade and I've been watering it occasionally. Here its companions are a grove of second year mullein spires (you might be able to see them in the pic on the right) 2 kinds of echinacea, a few evening primrose plants, yellow docks and a burdock. Oh, and a couple of sneaky sunchokes got in there. What do all of these have in common? Deep root systems. That means the soil here is more loose, aerated and probably richer. Not only has the look of this plant changed from its paler, more delicate appearance from last year, it's got way more of a kick as well. I sprinkled a few petals into a salad one evening and POW, did they wake up the taste buds. Spicy!
This is the patch I'm more inclined to use medicinally.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that when it comes to medicine more is better or stronger is better. This patch has qualities that the other lacks. The flavours are complex, which means the actions are too. There's that spicy kick that gets the saliva going, and can even induce a sweat; that's an indication for its use when I might want a stimulating action. Then comes a sweet flavour. That sweetness is an indication of a plant that can aid in the absorption of nutrients. Not just digestion - absorption. That makes it useful for people who are convalescing from a long illness, or for loss of appetite that is leading to fatigue and unwanted weight loss. Conversely, it can be helpful to those who are trying to lose weight, as the food they eat is better absorbed into the blood stream the brain is less inclined to signal hunger too quickly.
That, my friends, is one of the beautiful things about plants as medicines. The same plant can have seemingly opposite functions, depending on what you need it to do. Often, what plants do best is normalize the systems of the body that are out of kilter somehow.
The leaves of this particular monarda have a pronounced "buttery" feel to them. Hard to explain, you'd have to feel it to get what I mean. Anyway, that buttery-ness, according to Matthew Wood (yes, I refer to him a lot) will trigger the release of bile from the gall bladder, which helps us to digest fats which is again important to anyone trying to lose or gain weight or dealing with bathroom issues.
Then there's monarda's inexplicable (to me) ability to treat and sometimes even cure, tinnitus, clogged ears from allergies or left over infections (especially if they're fungal) and even Meniere's disease. I don't honestly know what it is about this wonderful plant that is clearing up the dizziness I get in allergy season when my ears feel "full" and my head feels woozy, but it works, especially when combined with eyebright. Small amounts of the tincture (3 drops or so) taken frequently (every few hours) work better than large amounts taken infrequently - another interesting aspect of plant medicines, less often = more.
What else can it do? Some herbalists claim great success with it for hard to treat bladder and vaginal infections (tincture, by mouth) and even the dreaded candida responds to long term use. Chewed flowers as a spit poultice are traditional for burns, including sunburn, and snake bites. For fevers (again according to Matthew Wood) monarda works best when the patient feels like they're burning up on the inside but their skin feels clammy and cool to the touch, less well when they're hot to the touch.
And here we have another important thing the home or clinical herbalist must understand. Plant medicines are specific to certain symptoms, it's rarely the case that one plant will treat all versions of an illness. For there are hot colds and cold colds, there are dry allergies and wet allergies, there are hot, "hectic" fevers and slow burning fevers that seem to get stuck inside the body. Sometimes we need to calm the body and sometimes we need to stimulate it. Learning how to use herbal medicine is as much about learning what the body's symptoms indicate the problem is, as it is about learning to identify and make medicines from the plants.
One last monarda story - actually, I'll call it sweet leaf this time because its sweetness is the punchline. Not long ago I noticed a tiny, hot, itchy spot on the inside of my wrist. It felt like a bite, so I did the plantain spit poultice thing and forgot about it. A couple of hours later, it was back. That's odd, I thought, and sprayed it with some rose water (another favourite remedy of mine). Again, a couple of hours later it was back. Hmmm. I ignored it for a couple of days. It didn't get worse but it didn't get better either, and then suddenly it did get worse. Not just itchy but hot hot hot. Weird. I could see a tiny hole, but there wasn't much swelling. It felt like a spider bite but it didn't look like one. If it was a spider, it only got me with one fang (ha!).
So I went out to the garden and started chewing on the flowers of my sweet leaf. Which meant saying "excuse me" to a whole lot of bees, that was fun. I'd chew, spit them on, wait .. instant cooling for a while, then it would heat up, then the itch would come back but each time a little less intense. I must have done several spit poultices over the course of an hour. For variety, (because those flowers are spicy and my mouth needed a break) I tried another plantain poultice with a little yarrow. That was pretty strong tasting too, so I went back to the sweetleaf. Eventually the bite - or whatever it was, maybe a tiny thorn I got while picking berries? - just faded away.
But there was a side effect to getting that much sweetleaf in my system.
I got this goofy grin on my face and it just wouldn't quit. I was itchy, I was hot and tired and fed up with this month long heat wave (temps of 100F just ain't normal here). I had plenty of reason to be bitchy - but I was grinning like a fool. For hours. Ha!
The flower essence, and to some degree the tincture or tea of sweetleaf (or monarda or beebalm or bergamot, take yer pick) is often used to bring back a person's sense of delight in life. It's a beautiful plant and taking the medicine is not only healing but cheering, too. I've often found that to be true, but in this case maybe I overdid it.
A case of the smileys? Not such a terrible thing.
If you're interested in finding monarda in the wild, check out this video from my new friend Josh. He specializes in foraging videos, I know some my readers will really appreciate his channel, go check it out!
Now here's my other monarda, sold to me as supposedly a fistulosa but I'm starting
to have my doubts about that.
Last year (the first year I grew it) the flowers were very similar to
 |
| Unabashedly purple! (pretend you can't see the laundry) |
This is another fairly chaotic, overgrown bed (all my beds are, medicinal plants do best when challenged) but it gets a bit more shade and I've been watering it occasionally. Here its companions are a grove of second year mullein spires (you might be able to see them in the pic on the right) 2 kinds of echinacea, a few evening primrose plants, yellow docks and a burdock. Oh, and a couple of sneaky sunchokes got in there. What do all of these have in common? Deep root systems. That means the soil here is more loose, aerated and probably richer. Not only has the look of this plant changed from its paler, more delicate appearance from last year, it's got way more of a kick as well. I sprinkled a few petals into a salad one evening and POW, did they wake up the taste buds. Spicy!
 |
| Note how much larger the leaf is. |
This is the patch I'm more inclined to use medicinally.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that when it comes to medicine more is better or stronger is better. This patch has qualities that the other lacks. The flavours are complex, which means the actions are too. There's that spicy kick that gets the saliva going, and can even induce a sweat; that's an indication for its use when I might want a stimulating action. Then comes a sweet flavour. That sweetness is an indication of a plant that can aid in the absorption of nutrients. Not just digestion - absorption. That makes it useful for people who are convalescing from a long illness, or for loss of appetite that is leading to fatigue and unwanted weight loss. Conversely, it can be helpful to those who are trying to lose weight, as the food they eat is better absorbed into the blood stream the brain is less inclined to signal hunger too quickly.
That, my friends, is one of the beautiful things about plants as medicines. The same plant can have seemingly opposite functions, depending on what you need it to do. Often, what plants do best is normalize the systems of the body that are out of kilter somehow.
The leaves of this particular monarda have a pronounced "buttery" feel to them. Hard to explain, you'd have to feel it to get what I mean. Anyway, that buttery-ness, according to Matthew Wood (yes, I refer to him a lot) will trigger the release of bile from the gall bladder, which helps us to digest fats which is again important to anyone trying to lose or gain weight or dealing with bathroom issues.
Then there's monarda's inexplicable (to me) ability to treat and sometimes even cure, tinnitus, clogged ears from allergies or left over infections (especially if they're fungal) and even Meniere's disease. I don't honestly know what it is about this wonderful plant that is clearing up the dizziness I get in allergy season when my ears feel "full" and my head feels woozy, but it works, especially when combined with eyebright. Small amounts of the tincture (3 drops or so) taken frequently (every few hours) work better than large amounts taken infrequently - another interesting aspect of plant medicines, less often = more.
What else can it do? Some herbalists claim great success with it for hard to treat bladder and vaginal infections (tincture, by mouth) and even the dreaded candida responds to long term use. Chewed flowers as a spit poultice are traditional for burns, including sunburn, and snake bites. For fevers (again according to Matthew Wood) monarda works best when the patient feels like they're burning up on the inside but their skin feels clammy and cool to the touch, less well when they're hot to the touch.
And here we have another important thing the home or clinical herbalist must understand. Plant medicines are specific to certain symptoms, it's rarely the case that one plant will treat all versions of an illness. For there are hot colds and cold colds, there are dry allergies and wet allergies, there are hot, "hectic" fevers and slow burning fevers that seem to get stuck inside the body. Sometimes we need to calm the body and sometimes we need to stimulate it. Learning how to use herbal medicine is as much about learning what the body's symptoms indicate the problem is, as it is about learning to identify and make medicines from the plants.
One last monarda story - actually, I'll call it sweet leaf this time because its sweetness is the punchline. Not long ago I noticed a tiny, hot, itchy spot on the inside of my wrist. It felt like a bite, so I did the plantain spit poultice thing and forgot about it. A couple of hours later, it was back. That's odd, I thought, and sprayed it with some rose water (another favourite remedy of mine). Again, a couple of hours later it was back. Hmmm. I ignored it for a couple of days. It didn't get worse but it didn't get better either, and then suddenly it did get worse. Not just itchy but hot hot hot. Weird. I could see a tiny hole, but there wasn't much swelling. It felt like a spider bite but it didn't look like one. If it was a spider, it only got me with one fang (ha!).
So I went out to the garden and started chewing on the flowers of my sweet leaf. Which meant saying "excuse me" to a whole lot of bees, that was fun. I'd chew, spit them on, wait .. instant cooling for a while, then it would heat up, then the itch would come back but each time a little less intense. I must have done several spit poultices over the course of an hour. For variety, (because those flowers are spicy and my mouth needed a break) I tried another plantain poultice with a little yarrow. That was pretty strong tasting too, so I went back to the sweetleaf. Eventually the bite - or whatever it was, maybe a tiny thorn I got while picking berries? - just faded away.
But there was a side effect to getting that much sweetleaf in my system.
I got this goofy grin on my face and it just wouldn't quit. I was itchy, I was hot and tired and fed up with this month long heat wave (temps of 100F just ain't normal here). I had plenty of reason to be bitchy - but I was grinning like a fool. For hours. Ha!
The flower essence, and to some degree the tincture or tea of sweetleaf (or monarda or beebalm or bergamot, take yer pick) is often used to bring back a person's sense of delight in life. It's a beautiful plant and taking the medicine is not only healing but cheering, too. I've often found that to be true, but in this case maybe I overdid it.
A case of the smileys? Not such a terrible thing.
 |
| Use with caution. May cause excess happiness. |
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