''Tanacetum balsamita'' is a perennial temperate herb known as costmary, alecost, balsam herb, bible leaf, or mint geranium. A fragrant plant native to southern Europe and

western Asia West Asia (also called Western Asia or Southwest Asia) is the westernmost region of Asia. As defined by most academics, UN bodies and other institutions, the subregion consists of Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, Iran, Mesopotamia, the Armenian ...

, it has been used over centuries for culinary,

aromatic In organic chemistry, aromaticity is a chemical property describing the way in which a conjugated system, conjugated ring of unsaturated bonds, lone pairs, or empty orbitals exhibits a stabilization stronger than would be expected from conjugati ...

, and

traditional medicine Traditional medicine (also known as indigenous medicine or folk medicine) refers to the knowledge, skills, and practices rooted in the cultural beliefs of various societies, especially Indigenous groups, used for maintaining health and treatin ...

purposes.

Description

Costmary is a perennial with oval serrated leaves and can grow up to high. During summer, it shows small, yellow, button-shaped blossoms which appear in clusters.

Name

The English name 'costmary' stems from ' costus of Saint Mary'. Also, in other languages, it is associated with the Virgin Mary, most probably because it was thought to be a treatment for women's diseases in folk medicine.

Origin and spread

The plant seems to have originated in the Mediterranean. Whether the plant called "balsamita" described by Columella in 70 AD is the same is unclear. Costmary was widely grown since the medieval times in herb gardens until the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In the 21st century, it has mostly disappeared in Europe, but is still widely used in southwest Asia. It is referred to by

Nicholas Culpeper Nicholas Culpeper (18 October 1616 – 10 January 1654) was an English botanist, herbalist, physician and astrologer.Patrick Curry: "Culpeper, Nicholas (1616–1654)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' (Oxford, UK: OUP, 2004) His boo ...

as the 'balsam herb'.

Phytochemicals

Leaves contain carvone as the main phytochemical (about 50% of total), together with minor amounts of β-thujone and other carvone-related chemicals.

Traditional medicine

From medieval times through the 18th century, costmary was used in various supposed treatments of traditional medicine.

Gallery

File:Tanacetum balsamita cv.majus Kh.208 But.jpg, Flower clusters File:Tanacetum balsamita balsamita 0zz.jpg, Leaves