Vervain
Verbena officinalis
A wiry traditional European herb, not the flashy garden verbena hybrids. Bitter aerial parts in folk teas. Not a culinary garnish.
GROW → HARVEST → EAT → DRY → POWDER → CAPSULE → GUMMY — forms are not equivalent. Food first.
Identity
Also called: verbena officinalis, herb of the cross
What it is
A wiry traditional European herb, not the flashy garden verbena hybrids. Bitter aerial parts in folk teas. Not a culinary garnish.
From the existing encyclopedia
Vervain has a long folk history; modern aaaLifetime pages focus on food-grade pantry use, not treatment claims. Cross-link pantry planning with v1 kits on the store page when this item appears in a bundle. Works alongside green tea or ginger in everyday beverage rotation. When substituting dried Vervain for fresh, use about one-third the volume and bloom in fat or hot water before adding acid or dairy.
Edible portions
Safety Not treated as food on this site.
Growing
- Climate. 4–8
- Light. Full sun
- Soil. Average, well-drained
- Planting. Weedy-looking — do not confuse with lemon verbena (Aloysia).
Traditional uses
Traditional use European folk herb — traditional use
AAA interpretation Traditional use is not automatically evidence, and evidence is not automatically a shopping recommendation.
Safety
- Not food. Not lemon verbena tea.
Next steps
Sources
- USDA PLANTS Database — taxonomy and range (verify current entries)
- No USDA FoodData Central nutrient profile is attached here. That is not a claim that the plant contains no nutrients.
- State cooperative extension growing guides — verify for your region
- Integrated from the existing aaaLifetime / quantum-biohack encyclopedia corpus (unique text preserved where it was not boilerplate).
Honest incompleteness is preferred to fabricated completeness. If a section is missing, no record for it is attached here — not a claim that the plant lacks that characteristic, and not that it was omitted as a secret.
Internal quality class B. Good foundation: enough unique information to exist as its own destination.