Beauty and cosmetics
Rosemary flowers and leaves contain an essential oil which has a strong aromatic fragrance, making it a popular ingredient in perfumery, cosmetics, hair products and incense burners. Rosemary has strong antioxidant properties and contains iron, calcium, and phytonutrients so it is added to hair care products to provide hydration and protection from sun damage.
Cultural
Rosemary’s pretty, purple flowers often feature in ornamental garden displays. It thrives in containers and along sunny borders in dry regions.
Food and drink
Rosemary is one of the most prized herbs used in cooking, especially in Mediterranean cuisine. It is used to flavour various dishes, both sweet and savoury, but is most popular in dressings for meats. The leaves have a bitter taste which compliments fatty foods like lamb and oily fish. Narbonne honey from France mostly comes from bees feeding on rosemary blossoms.
Health
The leaves and flowers of rosemary can be used to make a tea, thought to relieve headaches, colic, colds, and depression. Rosemary also has antibacterial and antifungal properties. It was used in traditional European herbal remedies for a variety of ailments, including wounds, eczema, poor appetite, and asthma.
Origins
The aromatic, sun-loving rosemary is a prized Mediterranean herb.
It is unsurprising that rosemary is otherwise known as the 'wonder-herb'; it has an array of uses from adding flavour to cooking and fragrance to perfumes, to decorating sunny garden borders and even improving memory.
Rosemary has been a symbol for memory for hundreds of years. In Shakespeare's Hamlet, Ophelia says: "There's rosemary, that's for remembrance".
Plant description
Rosemary is a fragrant, evergreen shrub with needle-like leaves and two-lipped, purplish-blue and white flowers. New growth is soft and flexible but older stems become woody and form trunks with time.
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