A medicinal herb which guaranteed courage in battle
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Beautiful Botanicals by Joanne Howdle
Borage (Borago officinalis) is also known as ‘Starflower’ because of its star-shaped flowers. This botanical comes from the Boraginaceae family. It has hairy stems and large basal leaves with toothed, wavy margins.
Borage flowers are most often bright blue in colour, although pink flowers are sometimes seen in the wild. Whilst this botanical is native to and grows wild in the Mediterranean, it is now widely cultivated around the world for its herbal properties and edible uses.
As a garden plant, it is a handsome and useful botanical. Although an annual, it readily seeds itself and will come up in the same plot year after year.
Borage provides an abundance of sweet nectar for bees and other insects to enjoy all summer long. This has resulted in the botanical sometimes being called ‘Bee Bread’ and the ‘Bee Plant’.
The flowers of borage are particularly attractive to bees, possibly because they see best at the blue end of the colour spectrum. However, after a bee has visited a flower it refills with nectar within two minutes, making borage a great pollinator-friendly plant for a small garden.
In fact, borage flowers make a light and delicate honey.
Borage is not only great for bees, it can also be enjoyed by humans. Both the flowers and young leaves of this botanical can be eaten. The leaves can be eaten raw or cooked and have a salty, cucumber taste. They make an excellent addition to a salad, though due to the hairiness of the leaves they should be chopped finely or mixed with other green salad leaves.
In Italy where borage grows wild in the mountains, women cook borage leaves like spinach and add it to the flour and egg mixture when making pasta. Borage leaves not only add that salty, cucumber flavour to the pasta, they also give it an attractive green colour.
The flowers have a sweet, mild cucumber flavour and can be candied, eaten raw and used as a garnish in a salad or dessert. Borage flowers can be made into a syrup and paired with other light herbal flavours, including basil and elderflower to make a refreshing gin cocktail. Borage flowers which are wonderfully cucumber like can also be frozen into elegant ice cubes to flavour citrus gin or placed directly into a glass as a garnish to bring a nice coolness to gin.
Borage leaves and flowers can also be brewed into a refreshing tea. In Persian cuisine, borage tea made from the dried flowers of the botanical is called Gol Gavzaban and is used to relieve stress and menstrual cramps. Borage tea is also a natural sedative which can help to ease depression and mood swings. As borage tea is quite bitter, it can be sweetened with honey.
Not only is borage tasty, it is also rich in nutrients including vitamin B, vitamin C, beta carotene, calcium, iron, potassium and zinc.
To the Ancient Greeks and Romans, borage was a potent medicinal herb guaranteeing courage in battle. Borage has been used in traditional medicine since ancient times to treat asthma, bronchitis, colic, cramp and diarrhoea; enhance iron absorption, energy levels and concentration; heal wounds; prevent dizziness; purify the blood; regulate hormones in women; strengthen the heart, and treat infections of the throat and mouth.
Borage is currently being researched as a potential treatment for rheumatoid arthritis because of its anti-inflammatory properties. It can also help relieve certain skin disorders such as dermatitis and eczema.
- Joanne Howdle is tour and events co-ordinator at the multi-award-winning Dunnet Bay Distillers Ltd.
