Wild Bergamot: Beautiful Blossoms
The third in a series of gorgeous garden plants that are good for the environment! Let’s establish a pollinator garden full of beautiful native plants! (By request.)
Wild Bergamot, or Monarda fistulosa, is a close relative of Scarlet Beebalm. Like Scarlet Beebalm, it is tall, around four feet high. The blossoms are a pale purple, and attract primarily butterflies and hummingbirds. Bees and other pollinators enjoy them too, but not as much.
Recognizing Wild Bergamot
The pale purple flowers in the picture next to us are definitely Wild Bergamot. I am also pretty sure that the bright pink ones are also Wild Bergamot, as the plant color varies wildly in cultivars.
You can see a happy Monarch Butterfly hanging out, having some lunch! It’s proboscis is extended, and it is drinking nectar from the long tube shaped flowers. That’s right — each of what we would normally think of as a petal is actually a complete flower! The flowers themselves cluster around a solid green center that contains the ovaries and eventually grows the seeds.
These long flowers are why bees and small insects don’t typically pollinate Wild Bergamot. It’s really targeting butterflies and hummingbirds, with beaks and long proboscises. At least it doesn’t kill smaller pollinators like Common Milkweed does!
By the way, I had to look up not only how to spell proboscis, but how to pluralize it. Good grief, what a word. Thank you, Greek!
In this picture, it’s easy to see that the leaves on the stems are opposite, meaning they come in pairs directly across from each other. They are toothed and not as robust as the leaves on it’s cousin, Scarlet Beebalm.
This plant has long stems. It can grow between 2–4 feet high and form a dense thicket after several years. It blooms from July to September, per the USDA. Although I am quite sure it was blooming in June this year. I guess it’s just another example of the early bloom we had in Maryland.
The Scent
Wild Bergamot has a wonderful scent. The day I took these pictures it was not as obvious as it was very very hot and dry, and had been for weeks. But crushing a leaf, or going after rain, allows you to appreciate a sweet unique scent! No wonder the butterflies were all over it!
As an aside, I see some research done by Tabanca, Bernier, Ali, Wang, et al. that states that the essential oil of more than one Monarda family member is effective at repelling the yellow fever mosquito. I think anyone who lives in Maryland is in favor of anything that repels mosquitoes. Let’s all swim in the stuff. I’m converting my entire backyard next year.
Propagation
The green center part of the flower-cluster dries and turns into a husk full of small dark seeds. You can harvest these and either plant them as seedlings and raise them carefully, or simply sprinkle them over damp clear ground in the spring.
It also apparently spreads by rhizomes, and is a perennial. Once it gets established, it will keep coming back, spreading, year after year. You will need to divide periodically for maximum bloom.
Medicinal Uses and Digressions
Various Native American tribes, such as the Tewa, Iroquois, Ojibwe, Menomini, and others used this as a medicine. Depending on the preparation, it appears to have been used for headaches, flatulence and nausea, or coughs and colds. I have not used this particular herb, but most people who use herbal medicine are very familiar with its close cousins, Mint/Spearmint/etc. They are commonly used today for those very same problems. The USDA has more information on the preparations used by these tribes.
And remember, as I mentioned in the Scarlet Beebalm article, the family Monarda is named after Nicholas Monardes, a 16th century Spanish physician who wrote about the medicinal uses of these plants.
I have a lot of interest in the history of herbal remedies. I love old recipes, and have several reproductions of very old cookbooks. I tried to find a copy Monardes’ book online that I can publicly link to, but, alas, the English translated copies appear to be behind a paywall and must be accessed at a library or some other institution with a subscription! Bummer!
And by English translated, I do mean some rather antique English. As demonstrated by this fun quote….
Ioyfull newes out of the new-found vvorlde. [microform] Wherein are declared, the rare and singuler vertues of diuers herbs, trees, plants, oyles & stones, with their applications, aswell to the vse of phisicke, as of chirurgery: which being well applyed, bring such present remedie for all diseases, as may seeme altogether incredible: notwithstanding by practice found out to be true. Also the portrature of the said hearbs, verie aptly described: Englished by Iohn Frampton marchant. Newly corrected as by conference with the olde copies may appeare. Whervnto are added three other bookes treating of the Bezaar stone [emphasis mine], the herb escuerconera, the properties of iron and steele in medicine, and the benefit of snow
I am sure you regret not being able to read that as much as I do. I mean, come on, it references using a Bezoar Stone, which is a stone-like thing found in something’s digestive system. That’s a (completely fake) remedy for poison straight out of 16th century alchemy!
Anything that suggests I eat ground-up gallstones after making a mistake foraging in the woods is a must-read.
I did find some of his other work available, on guiacum trees. Thank you, NIH! They even standardized the spelling for us modern English readers. In all seriousness, Bezoar aside, he’s considered one of the founders of modern tropical medicine. I shouldn’t laugh too much.
