Lavender

‘Good master, let’s go to that house, for the linen looks white, and smells of lavender, and I long to lie in a pair of sheets that smell so’.

Izaak Walton,

The Compleat Angler, 1682

English lavender – Lavandula vera, L. angustifolia, L. officinale – is the most fragrant of all lavenders, the most highly prized for the quality of its essential oils, which are used in the perfume industry. Less hardy varieties, particularly French lavender, L. stoechas, are also used for making oils and perfumes, but they do not have the deep, piercing fragrance of English lavender. They look slightly different too, somewhat like elongated pine cones, with distinctive purple bracts at the tip. Ironically, English lavender is the flower grown in Provence for the perfume industry.