Herbs in History: Lavender

Lavender Lavandula angustifolia Mill. CONTENTS Fragrance and falsification Modest start Apparent similarity Revision References

By Alain Touwaide & Emanuela Appetiti | May 2024

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Fragrance and falsification

Illustration 1: Lavender

Lavender is a synesthetic experience thanks to its delicate and inebriating scent, the unique violet-periwinkle colour of its flowers, especially in fields extending up to the horizon and beyond, almost melting in the sky (Illustration 1), and the relaxing feeling that invades the whole body when taken as a warm infusion. Whereas it has been introduced to, and grows as far as Australia for perfume making, it is a Mediterranean plant, with some species as:
 

Lavandula angustifolia Mill.,
L. angustifolia subsp. angustifolia (L. spica L.),
L. angustifolia subsp. pyrenaica (DC) Guinea (L. vera DC)

 
all three known as English Lavender, Common Lavender, or True Lavender, and also L. stoechas L., known as Greek Lavender, French Lavender, and Spanish Lavender (Lamiaceae [Labiatae]).
 

Modest start

Though typical of the visual and olfactive Mediterranean environment, lavender is barely present in the ancient botanico-medical literature. In the founding treatise of botany by Theophrastus (371/370-287/286 BCE), it is present in only two lists: one of the plants growing from seeds (Historia Plantarum-Inquiry into Plants 6.6.11) and the other of those flourishing in Summer (6.8.3). And, there, it is identified by a name that is not otherwise attested: iphyon. Only in the 1^st century CE does lavender appear more specifically, though still modestly. In the vast encyclopaedia on materia medica compiled in Greek by Dioscorides (De materia medica, Book 3, chapter 26), it is described under the name stoichas to which we shall return:
 

Stoichas: it grows in the islands below Gaul, in front of Massalia (Marseille), which are called Stoichas—this is where it took its name from.
 
It is a herb with a thin seed, with a foliage similar to that of thyme, with, however, longer leaves, a pungent taste, somewhat bitter.
 
Its decoction is efficacious for chest conditions, like hyssop. It is usefully mixed in the antidotes.

 
It also appears in the comprehensive multi-volume sum of information on natural sciences compiled by the Latin Pliny (23/24-79 CE) (Historia Naturalis-Natural History, Book 27, chapter 131):
 

Stoechas grows only on the islands of the same name.

It is a scented herb, with a foliage like that of hyssop and a bitter taste.
 
Administered as a draught, it provokes menstruation, and is also mixed in the antidotes.

 
Before any analysis, we should stress the similarity of the two texts above, even though Pliny’s text is shorter than that of Dioscorides and differs in the indications of lavender: while it omits the treatment of chest conditions, it introduces the treatment of amenorrhea (or regulation of menstruation). In spite of these differences—which are minor, globally speaking—we can deduce that both took their material from the same or a similar source.
 
Of particular interest here, the name of lavender: stoichas in Greek (with its Latinization stoechas), and its origin in the Stoichades islands reported in all the historical literature on lavender, without a proper explanation, however.
 
The islands from which lavender is supposed to have received its name are those currently identified as Îles d'Hyères in southern France (Illustration 2), called Stoichades in ancient Greek. Their Greek name is the plural of the term stoichas, which designates a row, a series of elements forming a line, for example like pearls on a string. As per this etymology, the Stoichades are defined as the Islands-in-a-row, which is indeed the case as the Îles d'Hyères form a line.
 

Illustration 2: The Îles d'Hyères

Illustration 3: Rows of lavender

From this, we may deduce that the use of the name stoichas for lavender might have been generated by some linearity of the plant, a series of elements forming a line. This might be the case of the elongated shape of its stalks, with the small flowers all along them, like small pearls on a string in a way that recalls the glass-pearls beads of Antiquity. Unless the term refers to the lines of the stalks of lavender in a field, aligned and parallel, and creating a visual rhythm (Illustration 3).
 
The native distribution of the Mediterranean species of lavender does not favor a connection with the Îles d'Hyères. Lavandula angustifolia Mill. is native to the Western Mediterranean without being insular (Illustration 4), whereas L. stoechas L. has a broader native origin, from the Atlantic to the Eastern Mediterranean, also including north-west Africa and the islands of the Western Mediterranean, without being exclusively insular, however (Illustration 5). In that case, the apparently founded etymology of the ancient Greek name lavender—geographico-environmental in nature—is probably an a-posteriori creation that goes back to a treatise on botany anterior to Dioscorides and Pliny, possibly their common source. This type of geographical etymology should not surprise us as it was an exercise in philological virtuosity much appreciated in ancient literature.
 

Illustration 4: Native distribution of Lavandula angustifolia Mill. according to Plants of the World Online

Illustration 5: Native distribution of Lavandula stoechas L. according to Plants of the World Online

Apparent similarity

Illustration 6: Nardostachys jatamansi (D.Don) DC

From its modest, almost unobserved nature, lavender took center stage thanks to its spike that seems to offer some similarity with another drug, particularly if several spikes were bound together in a tight bunch. This other drug is the rootlets of the nard, known as Indian Nard (Nardostachys jatamansi (D.Don) DC) (Illustration 6).

Just like musk, nard was typical of the Himalayas and was traded at a high price from its native area to the Mediterranean as early as classical Antiquity. Only the bunch of rootlets between its roots and the aerial parts was used as a drug. Its form evoked that of the spike of lavender, which was called stachus in Greek and spica nardi in Latin, meaning spike in both languages. Its trade through the Silk Roads began early in history, way before the Golden Age of the Silk Road: nard already appears in the most ancient treatises that form the Corpus Hippocraticum, that is, the set of medical works attributed to, but not by, Hippocrates (460-between 375 and 350 BCE).
 
Because of the long way and the many intermediaries, nard was marketed at an extremely high price, something that encouraged adulteration. Both Dioscorides and Pliny mention the fact, which they also denounce. According to Dioscorides, the manipulation is not so much about the substance itself, but rather about its weight (De materia medica, Book I, chapter 7):
 

The spike of nard is also sold soaked, something that can be identified by the fact that its spike is white, rough, and does not have down. They manipulate it by blowing onto it powdered antimony combined with water or date palm wine to make it more compact and heavier.

 
According to Pliny, the manipulation is rather about falsification (Naturalis Historia-Natural History, Book 12, chapter 43):
 

Nard is also adulterated (adulteratur in the Latin text) with a plant called Pseudo-nard, which grows everywhere, and has a thicker and broader leaf and a sickly colour tending to white; and also by being mixed with its own root to increase the weight, and with gum and silver-spume or antimony and gladiolus or husk of gladiolus.
 
Unadulterated nard can be detected by its high weight and its ruddy colour and sweet scent and particularly its taste, which dries up the mouth and leaves a pleasant flavour.

 
Here is where lavender entered the stage: a bunch of its spikes tightly bound resembles the spike-like radicels of true nard. It was sold at the price of nard whereas it had been collected from plants locally grown at a low cost, without all the trade of nard, its intermediaries, and the financial risk that contributed to increase the price asked from the final user.
 

Revision

As a result, lavender had a double life: on the one hand, it kept the modest status it has in Classical Antiquity as the Old-English Herbal possibly dating back to the late-10^th century indicates (chapter 149):
 

Lavender. This plant, which is called stoechas and by another name [lacuna] has many seeds, ones that are fine and small. The plant itself looks like rosemary, except that it has somewhat larger and stiffer leaves.
 
Take this plant, boiled; give to drink. It will heal chest pain. It is also customary for it to be mixed into many good drinks.

 
But, on the other hand, it continued to be used as a substitute—if not an adulterant—of nard as the 1542 De Historia Stirpium Commentarii Insignes (Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants) by the German physician, classicist and translator of ancient medical text Leonhart Fuchs (1501-1566) reports. Fuchs opened the chapter on Pseudo-Nardus writing that “it manifestly is not the true and authentic nard that Dioscorides and others mentioned”. He then distinguished two species, male and female, with female smaller and less scented than the male. And he mentioned the several names of this female Pseudo-Nardus:
 

… we [= Leonhart Fuchs himself] call it Pseudo-nard female. The Pharmacies and the more recent Herbalists call it Lavandula or Lavendula …

 
In spite of this, Fuchs credited this Pseudo-nard/Lavender with the same therapeutic properties as the true nard and recommended it for the treatment of medical conditions for which nard was prescribed.
 
It is only with Pietro Andrea Mattioli (1501-1577), the omniscient translator of, and commentator on, De materia medica by Dioscorides, that adulteration was brought to light in the literature and condemned. With all the verve he was capable of, Mattioli attacked all his contemporaries and even the classics, whom he usually much revered. Talking about the deceased physician and analyst of materia medica Antonius Musa Brasavola (1500-1555), he wrote (Commentarii in Dioscoridem, Venice, 1565, p. 30):
 

… Brassavolus (wrote) … “Do not search for nard in the mountains here, but buy its spike, stem and roots in Venice.” But, apparently forgetting what he himself wrote, a few lines further he said “The spike and the flower that are traded here are something else”. From that, I would easily believe that he confused information about nard, but also—and this is worse—that he messed it up. He started saying that the spike, the stem and the root can be purchased in Venice; then he denies that the spike is imported here. But I also find that, before all this, Pliny hallucinated on this topic … Following him, not only the Ferrara physicians, but also Ermolao and Ruel, were all out of their mind …

 

Illustration 7: Nard in Pietro-Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de Medica materia iam denuo ab ipso autore recogniti et locis plus mille aucti …, Venice: Officina Valgrisiana, 1565, page 29

The Ferrara physicians were not only Brasavola, but also his teacher, the authoritative Galenist Nicolao Leoniceno (1428-1524); Ermolao, was the very distinguished classical scholar, diplomat and, for some years, also Patriarch of Aquileia Ermolao Barbaro (1454-1493); and Ruel was the French translator of Dioscorides, De materia medica into Latin Jean Ruel (1474-1537). For Mattioli, the point was a question of botanical structure: on the basis of Dioscorides and Galen’s description, nard cannot be by any means a spike—that is, the part of a plant normally at the top of a stem—but must be a part of the underground root system of the plant as Mattioli himself explicitly stated in the conclusion of this denunciation of a rare violence:

… I think that no nard can be found as a spike at the top of a stem as Pliny reported, Ruel asserted, and Brasavola confirmed against Galen and Dioscorides’ opinion.

 
Whereas Mattioli never renounced to find at least an individual of the plants mentioned in Dioscorides—or, in the worst cases, a cutting, a seed, some part, or a representation—he did abandon for nard as the illustration he provided for it indicates without ambiguity (Illustration 7): it is an invented spike shaped as a plant above the level of the ground contrary to Mattioli’s own statement about the fact that the drug known as nard was necessarily a part of the root system of the plant. For lavender, instead, he provided large, full-page illustrations, in his examination of both nard and lavender (Illustrations 8-10).
 

Illustrations 8-10: Lavender in Pietro-Andrea Mattioli, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de Medica materia iam denuo ab ipso autore recogniti et locis plus mille aucti …, Venice: Officina Valgrisiana, 1565, pages 32 (Illustration 7), 31 (Illustration 9), 698 (Illustration 10)

If Mattioli’s virulent attacks to his contemporaries and his rigorous screening of ancient texts did lead to a closer examination of the drug sold as nard, they did not result in promoting lavender, which remained an unassuming plant used only for its scent, for perfuming cloth and linens, and for comfort in some benign conditions until it entered the sophisticated world of artistically crafted perfumes, large-scale agriculture and cutting-edge research aimed to increase production, improve quality, and enhance lavender’s unique and delicate scent.

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