The Family Kitchen Gardener (1856)/Balm
BALM.
Melíssa officinàlis—Melisse, Fr.—Melisse, Ger.
So called from the Greek word signifying honey, because of the abundant and excellent honey of its flowers, for which bees greatly frequent it. The Garden Balm is a native of the mountains of Geneva, Savoy, and Italy. It is perennial, and may be readily propagated by parting the roots in Spring or Autumn, and planting them in beds of common garden mould. The herb, in its recent state, has a weak, aromatic taste, and a pleasant smell, somewhat of the lemon kind. Balm was formerly esteemed of great use in all complaints supposed to proceed from a disordered state of the nervous system. As tea, however, it makes a grateful dilutent drink in fevers, and in this way it is commonly used either by itself or acidulated with lemons.