Content
- Lavender - a Mediterranean flowering shrub
- Lavender has been used for years
- Monks brought the lavender over the Alps
- Various types of lavender
- Lavender needs a lot of sun and barren soil
- Tips & Tricks
Lavender - a Mediterranean flowering shrub
Originally the highly fragrant lavender probably originated from Persia (now Iran) and spread from there across the entire Mediterranean. There, the plant grows both wild and cultivated, especially in the south of France, Italy and Greece, but also in the Canary Islands, in India and in North Africa.
Lavender has been used for years
Even the ancient Egyptians use the disinfecting and healing properties of lavender u. a. for religious ceremonies and as part of their cult of the dead. The bodies of deceased relatives were rubbed with lavender oil to preserve them. Pliny the Elder (23 to 79 AD), Roman general, historian and scholar, described the use of lavender in the Roman Empire. The clean Romans used the lavender especially for the purification of body and clothing, which is still the plant name today. Lavender comes from the Latin word "lavare", which means something like "wash". Incidentally, in Germany, lavender was also colloquially used to be called "wash herb".
Monks brought the lavender over the Alps
In the high Middle Ages, migratory Benedictine monks brought the herb from Italy across the Alps. The fragrant plant conquered both the monastery and the cottage gardens very quickly, even the medicine and herbalists of the Middle Ages - such as Hildegard von Bingen or Paracelsus - recognized his potential. Today, the lavender grows in almost all climatic zones of the world, wild-awake, however, only around the Mediterranean.
Various types of lavender
But lavender is not all lavender, in total there are about 25 different species.
Real lavender (Lavandula angustifolia),
Speiklavendel (Lavandula latifolia)
and baby lavender (Lavandula stoechas)
They are considered the three original wild wild lavender species from which all others have been bred out over time. The only truly hardy lavender is the true lavender, all others need protection from freezing temperatures or should not overwinter outdoors.
Lavender needs a lot of sun and barren soil
In its Mediterranean homeland, lavender grows on extremely barren, often stony ground both in the lowlands and at heights of up to 2019 meters. The distinctive Schopflavendel, however, comes awake wild, mainly near the coast. Lavender also needs these living conditions in Germany: barren soils and lots of sun, as otherwise it can not fully develop its medicinal essential oils.
Tips & Tricks
Lavender blossoms of wild-awake lavender, which originate from a so-called stimulating climate (altitude, salty sea air, lots of sun), are considered especially curative.
IJA