I found this plant in several neglected areas of our Ayrshire garden, struggling to grow among grasses and herbs. At first I thought it was merely the Red Dead-nettle but I soon realised it was something new. It took me a while to identify it: this species isn’t common in Scotland.
Clinopodium vulgare. Flowering occurs from mid-summer to the end of autumn. Photo: ©Richard Milne
Richard Milne’s photo shows it in full flower. He found it at a derelict site in Midlothian in 2020 and also it’s been recorded at the disused Blackford Quarry in Edinburgh. It forms patches, and it grows in various habitats including grasslands. Stace (2019) gives habitats as “hedgerows, wood-borders, scrubby grassland on light soils”.
It is a native plant; the first British record is by William Turner in 1548. Gerard’s Herbal (1597) describes it thus:
“The wild Basil or Acynos, called of Pena, Clinopodium vulgare, hath square hairy stems, beset with little leaves like unto the small Basil, but much smaller, and more hairy, sharp pointed, and a little snipped towards the end of the leaf, with small flowers of a purple colour, fashioned like unto the garden Basil. The root is full of hairy threads, and creepeth along the ground, and springeth up yearly anew of itself without sowing. This is the Clinopodoium altera of Matthiolus”.
It is a perennial. Its appearance en masse, shown nicely in Richard’s picture, makes it look like an erect species. But Gerard’s description says it “creepeth along the ground, and springeth up yearly anew”. I pulled out a few shoots from my garden patch, trying to verify Gerard. Images of two of those are shown below. Each piece has a lower horizontal part and then some erect shoots. Clapham et al. (1987) and other well-respected Floras say it is “rhizomatous”. Well, sort of. When I carefully dug one up I wasn’t entirely convinced. Just in case my specimen was somehow abnormal I consulted two on-line herbaria. Most of the dried and pressed materials at the two leading establishments, the Royal Botanic Gardens of Edinburgh and of Kew, show only the aerial shoots. However, they both have two examples that fall in the usual definition of rhizome, i.e. “a perennial underground stem usually growing horizontally”, and they look much like my images below. Most rhizomes grow roots but it isn’t obligatory to have roots to qualify. My plants had mere traces of roots.
Clinopodium vulgare stems after excavation. ‘Clino- ‘ comes from the Ancient Greek κλίνω (klínō, ‘to lean’) and ‘podium’ is Latin for foot. It seems an apt name. Photo: John Grace.
It belongs to the Mint and Dead-nettle family Lamiaceae: it has the typical square stem with opposite leaves, and the flowers are bi-laterally symmetrical (‘zygomorphic’). If you are a beginner you might like to view our short You Tube movie on the Lamiaceae here.
Richard Milne’s second photo (below) shows the flower structure and colour (but the colour is a somewhat variable ‘pinkish-purple’)
Shoot of Wild Basil, showing arrangement and colour of flowers. Normally there are >8 flowers in each whorl. Photo: ©Richard Milne
Having the English name ‘Wild Basil’ suggests it would be a good substitute for Basil, the very aromatic herb that’s lovely on tomatoes and strawberries, but alas it is only faintly aromatic and true Basil is in a different genus: its Latin name is Ocimum basilicum. That one is almost entirely absent in Britain as a wild plant: it needs warmth and moisture. It can just about be raised in a greenhouse in Scotland.
One of the names that Gerard uses for Wild Basil is ‘Unprofitable Basil’; yet he says
“Wild Basil pound with wine appeaseth the pain of the eyes, and the juice doth mundify the same, and putteth away all obscurity and dimness, all catarrhs and flowing humours that fall into the eyes, being often dropped into the same”
Wild Basil was once a ‘strewing herb’: scattered on the floor of homes it would release a pleasant but not overpowering aroma, as sort of medieval air-fresher. You would need a fairly good supply. It has also been widely used as a medicinal herb, and unsurprisingly modern research has demonstrated bio-active constituents (see a recent publication here).
Like many species, it has had several names. One accepted synonym is Satureja vulgaris. Another is Calamintha aegyptiaca. Formerly it was known as Melissa clinopodium.
The British and Irish distribution shows that its ‘headquarters’ are in the south but it does venture into Scotland, generally shirking the west and largely avoiding Ireland. It does however occur on the Burren, that vast area of limestone pavement to the south of Galway on Ireland’s western shore. I suspect the overall distribution is related to calcareous substrates (weak circumstantial evidence: one of its Scottish locations is a place called Chalkieside in East Lothian!). In an attempt to demonstrate this link I’ve placed a geological map of water-soluble calcareous rocks (just England and Wales were available to me) alongside the BSBI map of Clinopodium vulgare. You can judge for yourself whether they match.
Distribution of Wild Basil and the geological map of England and Wales showing soluble calcareous rocks. The Wild Basil map is from the BSBI; the geology map is from the British Geological Survey with ‘fair use’ copyright https://www.bgs.ac.uk/discovering-geology/earth-hazards/sinkholes/#karst
The global distribution shows the centre of gravity of Wild Basil to be its native Europe, with colonisation of distant parts of the English speaking-world. Many European species show this pattern, reflecting a long history of travel, trade and colonisation. In many cases the European species are considered ‘invasive aliens’ but this one doesn’t get a bad reputation. It’s fairly gentle.
References
Bektasevic M et al (2022), Polyphenol Composition, Anticholinesterase and Antioxidant Potential of the Extracts of Clinopodium vulgare L. Chemistry and Biodiversity https://doi.org/10.1002/cbdv.202101002
Clapham AR, Tutin TG and Moore DM (1987) Flora of the British Isles, third edition. Cambridge University Press.
©John Grace
Botany in Scotland 