Grains of paradise

Hailing from the Lamiaceae family, virtually all types of mint thrive in the humid climes of the northern hemisphere’s temperate regions. These aromatic, herbaceous perennials produce subterranean runners or rhizomes and typically feature simple or branched trichomes. Their leaves grow opposite to one another and are serrated around the edge. While botanists differentiate between numerous types of mint, those most commonly found in domestic herb gardens and include ...

Cloves are the dried buds of the clove tree, which belongs to the Myrtaceae family. With a height of up to ten meters, this evergreen tree is native to the Molucca Islands (a group of islands in Indonesia also known as the Spice Islands), but today it can be found across the globe. The buds, which resemble small nails, are known for their strong aroma and equally strong flavor. Though ...

Licorice root, or “sweet wood” (Süßholz) as it is called in German, is known not only for its medicinal properties, but also for its sweetness. In fact the German term for sweet-talking (Süßholz raspeln) translates literally as grating licorice root. While he was working on perfecting his unique recipe, Montgomery Collins – the forefather of Monkey 47 – could hardly have known that licorice would be selected as the medicinal plant of the year ...

A sprawling, deciduous shrub with vines that can climb up to ten metres, jasmine belongs to the olive family Oleaceae. Its delicate, white, sweetly scented flowers bloom from June to September and are held on pedicels whose oval berries turn dark-red when ripe, and later purple. The long, thin shoots have small, dark-green pinnate leaflets, interspersed with star-shaped flowers that are loosely clustered in umbels. Native to the tropical regions ...

Angelica archangelica, commonly known as Garden Angelica, Holy Ghost, Wild Celery, and Norwegian angelica, is a biennial plant from the Apiaceae family, a subspecies of which is cultivated for its sweetly scented edible stems and roots. Like several other species in Apiaceae, its appearance is similar to several poisonous species (Conium, Heracleum, and others), and should not be consumed unless it has been identified with absolute certainty. Angelica archangelica grows ...

The elderflower, a member of the Adoxaceae family, is perhaps best known in the form of the black elderberry. While people in northern Germany call it the Fliederbeerenbusch (or just Flieder for short), parts of Bavaria and Austria refer to Sambucus as Holler – much closer to Holder, as the species is known in the Monkey’s Black Forest habitat. Ranging between one and 15 metres in height, these typically woody half-shrubs, shru...

The humble blackberry comes into its own as the subject of a lovely old German folk song, which we’ve made a feeble attempt at translating here: “A basketful, what’s the use? A hand will surely do; In my father’s garden, Yes, the blackberry garden, There’s enough for me and you!” Lucky are they who can count this beautiful Rosaceae family member and its delectable fruit among the highligh...

Also known as garden sage, kitchen sage or common sage, this evergreen herb with medicinal properties is a subshrub of the genus Salvia and can reach a height of up to 80 centimeters. The strong, aromatic odor is characteristic of all parts of the plant, which are covered in wooly hairs that are especially thick near the crown. It is these hairs that give the plant’s rugose leaves their ...

The name nutmeg is misleading because this plant actually produces a type of berry, the excessive consumption of which can trigger hallucinating effects. The origins of nutmeg can be traced back to Indonesia’s Banda Islands, where the evergreen nutmeg tree, which can reach a height of 20 m and has yellowish white flowers, bears dark green, short-stemmed, pointed, leathery leaves measuring up to 15 cm, and on which the seeds – nutmegs – ripen....

Lavandula angustifolia (lavender or English lavender, though not native to England; also common lavender, true lavender, narrow-leaved lavender), formerly L. officinalis, is a flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native to the western Mediterranean, primarily the Pyrenees and other mountains in northern Spain. It is a strongly aromatic shrub growing as high as 1 to 2 metres tall. The flowers are pinkish-purple (lavender-coloured), produced on spikes 2–8 cm long at the top of sl...