Wood sage
Teucrium scorodonia
Family · Lamiaceae · Irritating
The mint with sage-wrinkled leaves and spikes of yellow-green flowers that grows in oak shade and acid banks in the north. Rubbed, it smells faintly of garlic, which explains the name.
Oak woods · Uplands · Scrubland · Walls and rocks
Also known aswoodland germander, sage-leaved germander
How to tell it
Heart-shaped leaves, deeply wrinkled with round teeth, opposite, dull green. Pale yellow-green flowers in one-sided lateral spikes, with no upper lip, as in all germanders.
What it is confused with
Wall germander
Teucrium chamaedrys
Wall germander is low, with a small glossy leaf and pink flowers, on limestone; wood sage is tall, with a large dull leaf and yellow-green flowers, on acid soil in shade.
Open sheet →What it is for
A traditional bittering agent in craft beer before hops, and a folk medicine plant. Like the other germanders, it has compounds linked to liver injury with prolonged use: not a plant for daily infusion.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.