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Which is this an anise hyssops or a betony.
It is at the end of the season now, but when it was in full bloom this summer is was lavender and it has a very strong anise smell?
If those are truly the only 2 choices, totally anise hyssop. Careful- the buggers self seed, & every yr the rootstock gets a little bigger...
At some point you'll have more than you bargained for! :-)
Yes, that is true! But they have not choked out everything like some things can do. They are rather random and scatter somewhat.
What is licorice anyway?
I heard on the news that lecorice can lower cholesterol, but I guess that this hyssops is just a extract and not the real thing. Sort of like lemon basil is not lemon and does not have the vitamin C that a lemon has.
I'm not sure if anise hyssop is a mint or what, but "true" anise is in the carrot/celery/parsley/dill/fennel/caraway family: Apiaceae or Umbelliferae, (both accepted, Apiaceae is more recent classification. Old farts like myself tend to use Umbelliferae)
Several similar plants are called "Anise." I *think* this is the one used to make licorice candy:
PlantFiles: Anise
Pimpinella anisum http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/308/
Liquorice is Glychyrriza glabra in the leguminosae( for old farts) or probably the Fabaceae now. Its a popular confectionary in the UK... its roots being used. Anice hyssop smells a bit like liquorice. Its in the same family as hyssop but of course not the same genus. I think you have to be a bit nuts to be interested in plant names and if you are ineterested, you'll go a bit nuts ( which are actually just a kind of fruit... cake)
Thanks, so I learned a lot here. First how to spell liquorice and the real thing can be found in fennel. I like fennel, my family will eat it some times when I think to raise it and I luck out and beat the butterfly worms to it.
You'll find some variation in the spelling--here in the US most people spell it licorice (whether or not that's technically correct). Mr_Canthus is right about the plant that licorice is from--anise and licorice have a similar flavor but they come from different (and completely unrelated) plants. Licorice comes from Glycyrrhiza glabra, anise is Pimpinella anisum. And anise isn't the same as fennel either, although they at least are in the same plant family.
Thanks ecrane3- I looked back and just noticed holeth spelled it licorice, the difference is I guess the Atlantic Ocean.
Thanks also for explaining to me. A flavor, a smell can be created more than once in nature. Apparently many times??
What confusses me, even with more familiar things like lemon - is that there are things out there like lemon basil, and lemon thyme, lemon grass, and I guess the same is true for licorice - anise - anise smelling fennel, anise smelling hyssops.
Yes, it is a really interesting, especially when you get the same smell across lots of different familes , as in the lemon smell... Lamiaceae, Poaceae, Rutaceaea, Verbenaceae at least.. and they're not close families in all cases. I think some flowers eg Lonicera fragrantissima ( Caprifoliaceae) that I was sniffing today also smell lemony.
I guess you need a good understanding of Biochemistry or something clever like that to make sense of why.
As regards, anice and liquorice ( as we spell it here), I've never really seen the similarity in scent or taste. Trying to remember the smell of Agastache and think its more anise-like but I did grow a great Agastache cultivar a couple of years ago called 'Liquorice Blue'
anise hyssop is in the mint family, holeth. It also refer to the smell which some plants have - some plants don't have it. There's even a rare magnolia species that have the common name Anise in it because of its fragrance when you bruise the leaves.
Ahh... but if you like one, you will like them all... licorice or lemon... and I do.
Interesting discussion. BTW, there is even a basil that has the licorice taste.
I have a Glychyrriza glabra plant growing in a pot. As a result, it has never grown large and no, I've not harvested the roots yet.
