The Longevity of Love-in-a-Mist
LOVE-IN-A-MIST, or Nigella damascena, is deeply rooted in ancient history, and thanks to refinement from legendary British garden designer Gertrude Jekyll, the blooms can still be found everywhere from carefree cottage gardens to fine floral arrangements.
Native from southern Europe to northern Africa, N. damascena has long been considered a useful medicinal and culinary plant. It’s a member of the buttercup family that’s been grown as an ornamental in European gardens possibly as far back as the 1500s. The name “nigella” comes from the Latin “niger,” which translates to “black” and refers to the coal-colored seeds found encapsulated in the balloon-like pods.
When the blooms were introduced to America, they were considered a cottage garden staple; pragmatic colonists were said to have particularly appreciated the edible foliage. The self-sowing annual plants were easy to grow, because their natural range includes roadsides and waste sites with poor, rocky soil. In his Joseph Breck describes love-in-a-mist’s foliage as a fennel-like leafy green; he also refers to the seeds as kind of a poor man’s aromatic spice. Ancient medicinal texts list the seeds of , a very close relative of , as a digestive cure-all.
