Rosmarinus officinalis Rosemary
rosemary bush

Medicinal Aromatics

 
Mahuna Medicine
(Respiratory Aid)

Plant used for catarrh.

Tanana Food
(Beverage)

Leaves used to make tea.

Ojibwa Food
(Beverage)

Fresh or dried leaves and tips boiled for a beverage tea.

Sensory quality
sprig of rosemary

Rosemary Sprig

Strongly aromatic (reminiscent to camphor or eucalyptus), resinous and slightly bitter. Main constituents. You can burn sprigs of dried rosemary to cleanse the atmosphere in your home. The scent is refreshing, and the herb has been used in sickrooms for centuries, since it is a time-honored antimicrobial.

The leaves contain about 1 to 2.5% essential oil. Therein, 1,8-cineol (30%), camphor (15 to 25%), borneol (16 to 20%), bornyl acetate (max. 7%), α-pinene (max. 25%) and others contribute to the complex taste. On the tannin content see hyssop and on bitterness in general see zedoary.
Origin

Mediterranean. Rosemary was one of the plants that, according to the Capitulare de villis, was grown in medieval monasteries (see lovage). However, its poor resistance to freezes limited its popularity, especially in regions north of the Alps.

Today, rosemary is cultivated in nearly all countries around the Mediterranean Sea, furthermore in England, the US and México.

Most European languages have names for rosemary that still much resemble the original Latin rosmarinus: German Rosmarin, Finnish rosmariini, Italian ramerino, Spanish romero, Basque erromero, Albanian rozmarinë, Serbo-Croatian ružmarin, Bulgarian rozmarin and Greek rozmari. In Greek, however, it is more common to call rosemary dendrolivano, which literally mean “incense tree”: livani “incense” and dendro “tree”.