CLASS XIV.—DIDYNAMIA.
GYMNOSPERMIA.
178. LAVENDER is a well-known perennial garden plant (Lavandula spica) which grows wild in the south of Europe, and the flowers of which yield a grateful perfume.
Such is the fragrance of this delightful flower, and so easy is its culture, that we can now scarcely enter a garden in which it is not found. It will grow in almost any soil, but it flourishes most luxuriantly in clayey ground; and in situations whence, without inconvenience, it can be conveyed to the metropolis, it is a very valuable crop.
When cultivated to any extent, lavender should be planted in rows two or three feet apart, and the sets should be about two feet from each other. It is usually propagated from slips. During dry weather, in the month of July, the flowers should be gathered, by cutting off the heads close to the stem; after which they must be tied in bundles to be distilled.
When distilled with water, the flowers of lavender, if in a mature state, yield an essential oil; generally in the proportion of about one ounce of oil to sixty ounces of flowers. This oil is of a bright yellow colour, and possesses the perfect fragrance of the lavender. But, if distilled with rectified spirit, the virtues are more completely extracted. From the leaves a very small proportion of oil can be obtained.
The preparations of this plant that are used in medicine are, the essential oil, a simple spirit, and a compound tincture. Lavender, however, is much more frequently and more extensively employed as a perfume than medicinally. The flowers are deposited in chests and wardrobes among linen, not only on account of their fragrant smell, but also from an opinion that their odour will prevent the depredations of moths and other insects. The perfume called lavender water may be prepared by mixing three drachms of oil of lavender, and one drachm of essence of ambergris, with one pint of spirit of wine.
Lavender is supposed to have been first cultivated in England about the year 1558.