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Clinopodium douglasii
Yerba buena (Clinopodium douglasii), also called Oregon tea, is a low, sprawling, mat-forming perennial herb of western North America with minty, aromatic leaves. It is grown mainly as a ground cover or for herbal tea in mild, moist, partly shaded sites.
Clinopodium douglasii, (synonym Micromeria douglasii), yerba buena, or Oregon tea is a rambling aromatic herb of western and northwestern North America, ranging from British Columbia southwards to Southern California and from the Pacific coast eastwards to western Montana. The plant takes the form of a sprawling, mat-forming perennial. The name "yerba buena" derives from Spanish for "good herb" and is applied to various other plants.
Clinopodium douglasii is native to the western United States and Canada, ranging from western British Columbia to southern California and parts of the interior mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest and northern California. The coastal and interior mountain distributions of this species are largely disjunct, and it is largely absent from the dry interior regions between these areas, such as the Interior and Columbia Plateaus and California's Central Valley.
This species was used by native groups throughout its range of occurrence, from Southern California to western British Columbia, both as a beverage and a medicine. The most widespread use was as a mint-flavored tea consumed as a beverage, a use that was taken up by non-native settlers as well. The herb was also used as a medicine, particularly as a treatment for colds and fevers, for abdominal pain and colic, and as a "blood purifier" or as "good for the kidneys". Prepared in the form of a strong decoction or infused in goat's milk, yerba buena was used as an anthelmintic by the Rumsen and Mutsen Ohlone and the Chumash, as well as by Mission Indians and Californios in the Central Coast area of California. The Hoopa and Karuk peoples are reported to have sometimes worn vines of the plant around their neck or in their hair as a fragrance, while native people of the Oregon coast are said to have used the aromatic plant to disguise their scent when hunting.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Clinopodium douglasii 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.
