Plants of the Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Bergamots all have flowers in dense heads with the stamens protruding.

Stems: Purple Bergamot grows upwards to 3+ feet high on typical 4-angled mint family green stems (reddish with full sun at maturity) that branch in the upper half and are mostly hairless though they can have some gray hair at the nodes and on the stem angles.

Leaves are opposite, stalked, lance shaped with a triangular base, and a main rib-vein with branched side veins curving toward the leaf margin which is serrated. Teeth are less noticeable or absent on upper leaves. Lower leaves are larger, with more pronounced teeth, longer stalks and can have a pair of minor leaflets at the base of the stalk. Stalks and leaf surfaces of all leaves have fine hair. The green parts of the plant have a distinctive aroma of oregano when crushed. The Bergamot that is an ingredient in Earl Gray Tea is not this plant, but Mentha citrata.

Inflorescence: The inflorescence is a single dense flower head, 1 to 3 inches wide, on one of many branching stems, but sometimes appear from an upper leaf axil.

Flowers: The florets are tubular, reddish-purple in color, with corollas of 5 petals that form 2 lips - one lip formed from two fused petals forming an elongated tube that rises upward and surrounds and protects the 2 stamens and the style, which protrude above that upper lip. Three fused petals form one wider but much shorter lip below. Stamens have similar colored anthers with a darker marginal line and the style has fine white hair. There is also a purplish hair on the outside of the corolla tube. The calyx tube is shorter than the corolla, greenish pink, with five pointed lobes. Flowers open from the center of the head first and progress to the outer edge. Under the flower head are green bracts that turn purplish in color, while some smaller bracts under them remain green. The flower stem has fine white hair as do the margins of the bracts.

Seeds are a small black dry nutlet. Dry seeds need 3 months of cold storage before planting in the early spring.

Habitat: Purple Bergamot likes full sun with moist to somewhat dry conditions and slightly acidic soil. The plant grows from a rhizomatous root system that produces multiple stems in a cluster. Long-tongued bees and butterflies love the plant.

Names: The genus name, Monarda, is an honorary for Spanish botanist Nicholas Monardes (1493-1588) who published a book in several editions on medicinal plants of the new world. The species media, means 'intermediate' or 'middle', the use here being obscure. The author name for the plant classification - ‘Willd.’ is for Carl Ludwig Willdenow (1765-1812), German botanist, a founder of the study of the geographic distribution of plants. He was director and curator of the Botanic Garden of Berlin.

Comparison: There are not many plants of Purple Bergamot in the Upland Garden compared with the proliferation of Wild Bergamot, M. fistulosa, which differs from this plant by its lighter pink to lavender color. Purple Bergamot tends to bloom earlier than Wild Bergamot. The structure of the two plants is similar. There are ornamental cultivars available from the nursery trade which could ultimately escape to the wild. These usually resemble M. media and M. fistulosa except in flower color - the most common cultivar comes from Monarda didyma and is the deep red one called called 'Raspberry Wine'.