09/04/2023
This article is about culinary, medicinal, and spiritual herbs. For the botanical usage, see herbaceous plant. For other uses, see Herb (disambiguation).
A variety of herbs are visible in this garden, including mint.
In general use, herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables and other plants consumed for macronutrients, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typically distinguishes herbs from spices. Herbs generally refers to the leafy green or flowering parts of a plant (either fresh or dried), while spices are usually dried and produced from other parts of the plant, including seeds, bark, roots and fruits.
Herbs have a variety of uses including culinary, medicinal, aromatic and in some cases, spiritual. General usage of the term "herb" differs between culinary herbs and medicinal herbs; in medicinal or spiritual use, any parts of the plant might be considered as "herbs", including leaves, roots, flowers, seeds, root bark, inner bark (and cambium), resin and pericarp.
The word "herb" is pronounced /hɜːrb/ in Commonwealth English,[1] but /ɜːrb/ is common among North American English speakers and those from other regions where h-dropping occurs. In botany, the noun "herb" refers to a "plant that does not produce a woody stem", and the adjective "herbaceous" means "herb-like", referring to parts of the plant that are green and soft in texture".[2][3]
"What is a herb?" "The friend of physicians and the praise of cooks."
--Alcuin and his student Charlemagne[4]
Definition
Herb garden at Hardwick Hall, Derbyshire, England, originally planted in the 1870s by Lady Louisa Egerton, recreated by the National Trust, largely following the original design.
In botany, the term herb refers to a herbaceous plant,[5] defined as a small, seed-bearing plant without a woody stem in which all aerial parts (i.e. above ground) die back to the ground at the end of each growing season.[6] Usually the term refers to perennials,[5] although herbaceous plants can also be annuals (plants that die at the end of the growing season and grow back from seed next year),[7] or biennials.[5] This term is in contrast to shrubs and trees which possess a woody stem.[6] Shrubs and trees are also defined in terms of size, where shrubs are less than ten meters tall, and trees may grow over ten meters.[6] The word herbaceous is derived from Latin herbāceus meaning "grassy", from herba "grass, herb".[8]
Another sense of the term herb can refer to a much larger range of plants,[9] with culinary, therapeutic or other uses.[5] For example, some of the most commonly described herbs such as sage, rosemary and lavender would be excluded from the botanical definition of a herb as they do not die down each year, and they possess woody stems.[7] In the wider sense, herbs may be herbaceous perennials but also trees,[9] subshrubs,[9] shrubs,[9] annuals,[9] lianas,[9] ferns,[9] mosses,[9] algae,[9] lichens,[7] and fungi.[7] Herbalism can utilize not just stems and leaves but also fruit, roots, bark and gums.[7] Therefore, one suggested definition of a herb is a plant which is of use to humans,[7] although this definition is problematic since it could cover a great many plants that are not commonly described as herbs.
