Dittany of Crete (Origanum dictamnus)
Flowers: Summer. Height: Up to 30cm (12in).
Medicinal: Best known as a wound herb and as an antidote to snakebite and poison due to strong antiseptics contained in the leaves which was made into a medicinal tea. The dried herb, rubbed between the hands and then mixed with a little wine, could be spread on the body to repel serpents. The Greek botanist Theophrastus, following his master Aristotle, maintained that the wild goats of Mount Ida when stricken by the arrows of hunters, would seek out the herb and eat it. The arrows would drop from their bodies and the wounds would be cured. This story was repeated by Dioscorides in his book De materia medica, where he lists a number of alternative names for the herb including artemidon, after the goddess Artemis, goddess of the hunt, who could both deliver wounds and heal them, as the juice of the plant, put directly on the wound or drunk, cured any injury caused by iron. Dittany’s reputation as a wound herb is maintained by the Roman poet Virgil in Book XII of the Aeneid, in which the goddess Venus herself brings a branch of the herb from Mount Ida to Italy to heal the wound dealt in battle to her son Aeneas. Culpeper’s Complete Herbal (1653) stated “It is an excellent wound herb and in much reputation among the ancients. The whole herb is good for diseases of the head, and to open up all manner of obstructions”.
Culinary: Used in France and Italy for flavouring vermouth.
