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Ballota nigra
Also called Fetid Horehound
Black horehound is a hardy perennial herb of the mint family, found in ruins, hedges and waste ground across Europe and the Mediterranean. It is easy to grow in open ground given well-drained, alkaline soil and full sun.
Ballota nigra, the black horehound, is a perennial herb in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to Europe, the Mediterranean region and east to central Asia. It is also naturalised in Argentina, New Zealand, and the eastern United States. It blooms in the Northern Hemisphere from May to August.
Ballota nigra is a nitrophilous plant; it grows in ruins, fallows, and hedges at elevations up to 1,300 m (4,300 ft). It prefers loose, calcareous (alkaline) soils. It tolerates temperatures as low as -5°/-10 °C.
Usually the plant is used dry and harvested when blooming. Syrups can be made from fresh plants.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Ballota nigra by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
