Showing Food Lemon balm
General Information | |||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Name | Lemon balm | ||||||||||
Scientific Name | Melissa officinalis | ||||||||||
Description | Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), not to be confused with bee balm (which is genus Monarda), is a perennial herb in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean region. It grows to 70–150 cm tall. The leaves have a gentle lemon scent, related to mint. During summer, small white flowers full of nectar appear. These attract bees, hence the genus name Melissa (Greek for 'honey bee'). Its flavour comes from citronellal (24%), geranial (16%), linalyl acetate (12%) and caryophyllene (12%). | ||||||||||
Primary ID | FOOD00108 | ||||||||||
Picture | |||||||||||
Classification | |||||||||||
Group | Herbs and Spices | ||||||||||
Sub-Group | Herbs | ||||||||||
Taxonomy | |||||||||||
Lineage | |||||||||||
External Links | |||||||||||
ITIS ID | 32565 | ||||||||||
Wikipedia ID | Melissa officinalis | ||||||||||
Composition | |||||||||||
Compounds |
| ||||||||||
Macronutrients |
| ||||||||||
References | |||||||||||
Content Reference | — Duke, James. 'Dr. Duke's Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases. United States Department of Agriculture.' Agricultural Research Service, Accessed April 27 (2004). — Rothwell JA, Pérez-Jiménez J, Neveu V, Medina-Ramon A, M'Hiri N, Garcia Lobato P, Manach C, Knox K, Eisner R, Wishart D, Scalbert A. (2013) Phenol-Explorer 3.0: a major update of the Phenol-Explorer database to incorporate data on the effects of food processing on polyphenol content. Database, 10.1093/database/bat070. — Shinbo, Y., et al. 'KNApSAcK: a comprehensive species-metabolite relationship database.' Plant Metabolomics. Springer Berlin Heidelberg, 2006. 165-181. — U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. 2008. USDA National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, Release 21. Nutrient Data Laboratory Home Page. |