EO ESO 
MELISSA OFFICINALIS: ORD. XIX. Verticillate. 335 
| THE root is perennial, fibrous: the stems are erect, quadrangular, 
smooth, branched towards the bottom, and usually rise two or three 
feet in height: the leaves are heart or egg-shaped, spreading, 
rough, ribbed, veined, deeply serrated, of a bright green colour, 
and placed in pairs upon footstalks, which of the lower leaves are 
very long: the flowers are white or yellowish, placed in whorls or 
clusters at the ale of the leaves, and appear in June and July: the 
bractez are oblong, notched, hairy, and placed at the peduncles: 
the calyx consists of one tubular pentangular leaf, divided at the 
brim into two lips, of these the upper is larger, and divided at the 
extremity into three segments; the under is shorter at the margin, 
and cut into two teeth: the corolla is monopetalous, bilabiated, 
tubular: the upper lip is the shorter, with a notch at the apex; 
the lower is cleft into three parts, of which the middlemost is the 
largest: the filaments are four, two long and twoshort, and furnish- 
ed with oblong anther: the germen divides into four parts, from- 
the centre of which issues a long slender style, crowned with a 
cleft stigma: the seeds are four, egg-shaped, and lodged at the 
bottom of the calyx. 
Schultz, who has professedly written on this plant, * was unable 
to say by what name it was known to the ancients. The Merwaopuaroy 
seU Midrrave, of Dioscorides, which has been by some supposed to 
be our Melissa, is by Nicander referred to the Marrubium.|| 
The Balm is a native of the southern parts of Europe, especially 
in mountainous situations, but it is very common in our gardens, 
and was cultivated in that of Gerard previous to the year 1596. 
The herb, in its recent state, has a weak roughish aromatic taste, 
and a pleasant smell, somewhat of the lemen kind, and hence this 
species has been named Melissa odore citri. 
“ On distilling the fresh herb with water, it impregnates the 
first runnings pretty strongly with its grateful flavour: when large 
quantities are subjected to the operation at once, there separates 
* J. Hen. Schultz, De Melissa, anno 1739. 
| Theriac 0, 554. 555. 
