Marrubium vulgare

Marrubium vulgare

€5,90
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Marrubium vulgare
  • Marrubium vulgare
  • Marrubium vulgare
Marrubium vulgare

Marrubium vulgare

€5,90
Organic
Sustainable
Locally grown

🪴Standard: 9x9 cm pot

🚂  Ships across EU

🌱 Grown without pesticides or UV lamps

☀️ Full sun
💧 Drought tolerant
🪴 Grows well in pots or in the ground
❄️ Hardy perennial
Flower Color: White

Origine: Europe

Marrubium vulgare is a tender drought hardy perennial and a member of the mint family, used historically for making candies, syrups and teas.

The flowers are small and white, borne in clusters.

The leaves are grey, with a densely crinkled surface, covered in fine white hairs and fragrant.

The foliage resembles that of mint, while its scent slightly evokes thyme. The fragrance is strongest when the leaves are fresh, diminishing as the leaves dry.

Learn more about gardening with White Horehound:

👩🍳COOKING TIPS👩🍳: Marrubium vulgare

The Tale & The Botany: Marrubium vulgare

 

 

Origin

Europe
pda426
Gardening Tips

✂️ Cutting back after the first flowering produces a second bloom
The Botany

Floral Morphology: Marrubium vulgare

Marrubium vulgare is a herbaceous perennial of the Lamiaceae (mint) family.

Its flowers are small, tubular, and bilabiate (two-lipped), typically whitish to pale pink, arranged in dense, globular axillary clusters along the upper stems.

Each flower has a calyx of five fused sepals and a corolla with a pronounced upper and lower lip, adapted for insect pollination.

The flowers are hermaphroditic, with four stamens (two long, two short) and a single style that protrudes slightly.

Flowering occurs mainly from late spring to early summer, and the inflorescences are subtended by small, woolly bracts.

Reproductive Biology

Marrubium vulgare reproduces both sexually and vegetatively.

Sexual reproduction occurs via seed (achenes), which are small, hard, and capable of dispersal by wind or animals.

The seeds germinate readily under suitable conditions.

Vegetative reproduction is possible through root and stem fragments, allowing the plant to form clonal patches.

Marrubium vulgare is primarily pollinated by bees and other nectar-collecting insects, and its flowers produce nectar to attract pollinators.

The species is self-fertile but benefits from cross-pollination to increase seed viability.

Ecology

Marrubium vulgare is also used as a natural grasshopper repellent in agriculture.

It can grow in poor soils and is very drought tolerant.

Its dense, woolly foliage reduces water loss, making it well adapted to semi-arid conditions.

The flowers attract a wide range of pollinators, particularly bees and butterflies, providing an important nectar source.

The plant’s vigorous growth and ability to self-seed allow it to form extensive patches, which can stabilize soil in degraded areas but also make it moderately invasive in some habitats.

Introduced to Australia and New Zealand in the 19th century as a medicinal herb, it quickly became invasive.

As livestock consider it unpalatable, it can quickly take over fields and marshes.

Other names

White horehound
The Myth

The Oxford English Dictionary derives the word horehound from Old English hoar (furry, as in "hoarfrost") and hune (a word of unknown origin designating a class of herbs or plants).

The word "white" is generally used in botanical contexts, to distinguish it from black horehound (Ballota nigra), a similar-looking herb.

The Latin name Marrubium derives from the Hebrew word marrob, meaning bitter juice, while vulgare means ‘common’ or ‘well known’.

White horehound has been mentioned in conjunction with use as a folk medicine dating at least back to the 1st century BC, where it appeared as a remedy for respiratory ailments in the treatise De Medicina by Roman encyclopaedist Aulus Cornelius Celsus.

It is one of the ingredients of the Ricola throat lozenge.

Gnerally, it is used today more as a food or flavoring additive rather than a specific cure.

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