Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)

HYSSOP, Hyssopus officinalis L., a perennial plant of the family Labiatae, growing wild in Southern Europe, the Crimea, and the Caucasus, and cultivated as a garden plant because its young leaves are eaten as a salad. Its four-sided stem bears opposite, nearly sessile, entire lanceolate leaves. Combined into inflorescences in the form of racemose panicles, the numerous two-lipped flowers are usually colored blue, less frequently reddish or white. The entire plant without the roots (Herba Hyssopi), harvested during flowering, is used as a pharmaceutical preparation. In a dried state, hyssop possesses a camphor-like odor and a spicy, bitter taste. Its constituents, apart from an essential oil (0.3–0.9%) containing p-pinene (C₁₀H₁₆) and l-pinocamphone (C₁₀H₁₆O), include: tannins, resin, fat, malic acid, sugar, and salts. Hyssop is used in folk medicine internally as a tea and externally as a tincture for respiratory diseases. The essential oil, Oleum Hyssopi, was formerly proposed, exclusively on empirical grounds, as a remedy for syphilis and leprosy (0.1–0.2 pro dosi).