Wild basil
Clinopodium vulgare
Family · Lamiaceae · Harmless
The wood-edge mint relative with purple-pink flowers in tight whorls along the stem, each whorl ringed by a crown of fine hairy bracts like a brush.
Oak woods · Roadsides and waste ground · Uplands · Scrubland
Also known asbasil thyme, cushion calamint
How to tell it
An upright, very hairy plant with a four-angled stem. Opposite, oval leaves with shallow teeth. The flowers gather in dense separated whorls along the stem, purple-pink, and beneath each whorl is a ring of very hairy needle-like bracts, which is the genus's mark. A mild oregano scent when rubbed.
What it is confused with
Oregano
Origanum vulgare
Oregano gathers its flowers in corymbs at the branch tips and smells strongly; wild basil holds them in whorls along the stem, with a ring of hairy bracts beneath each whorl, and smells far less.
Open sheet →What it is for
A traditional infusion across Europe, and used as a poor substitute for oregano. Traditional use, in the past. It is worth it above all as a lesson: it shows that a mint relative is identified by the whorled arrangement of its flowers, not by colour.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.