Every December, people across the globe adorn their homes with festive greenery for the holidays. Colorful lights and ornaments embellish firs, spruces, and pines. Vibrant poinsettias brighten mantles and dining tables. Holly and mistletoe are woven into garlands and wreaths.

From the Middle Ages through the eighteenth century, however, another plant played an equally important role in the holiday lineup. Rosemary decked the halls—or, more accurately, the floors—of churches and dwellings at Christmas. But the herb was more than just a decoration. Rosemary’s history is intertwined with religion, medicine, literature, and the culinary arts.

According to Christian legend, rosemary was one of the herbs that lined the manger in which Jesus was born. The evergreen shrub was also called the “Rose of Mary” on account of its flowers, whose pale-blue color symbolizes the Virgin Mary’s divinity. Another legend claims that the Virgin Mary changed the color of rosemary flowers from white to blue after draping her blue cloak over a white-blossomed bush.

These stories inspired the medieval belief that smelling rosemary on Christmas Eve would bring a year of good luck, health, and happiness. It became tradition to scatter the herb on the floor and tread upon its needle-like leaves, releasing a fresh, woody aroma. Parishioners also hung sprigs of rosemary alongside holly and ivy in their places of worship.

Covering the ground with fragrant herbs was a common practice of the Middle Ages, used to mask any unpleasant smells from the period’s compacted-earth floors and inadequate sanitation systems. Malodors were thought to bring disease, while the scents of nature were considered healing and revitalizing. As Italian Renaissance philosopher and physician Marsilio Ficino wrote in 1489, “For all herbs, flowers, trees, and fruits have an odor, even though you often do not notice it. By this odor they restore and invigorate you on all sides, as if by the breath and spirit of the life of the world.” Scattering rosemary on Christmas Eve and herb strewing at large persisted until the eighteenth century.

Applications in Antiquity

In antiquity, rosemary became an emblem of faithful remembrance and immortality. This tradition began in the herb’s native range of the Mediterranean. Rosemary flourished in the region’s dry, rocky habitats, especially along the coast. The first half of the plant’s original scientific name, Rosmarinus officinalis, refers to the dew-like appearance that sea spray created on coastal plants. Together, the Latin words “ros” and “marinus” translate to “dew of the sea.” Rosemary was recently reclassified as Salvia rosmarinus after researchers found close similarities between its DNA and plants in the Salvia genus, many of which have been used in traditional medicine. Salvia originates from the Latin word “salveo,” which means “to be well” or “to be in good health.”

Ancient Egyptians used rosemary in embalming practices and buried the dead with sprigs of the herb to protect their souls on the journey to the afterlife.

“There is a belief that this aromatic plant keeps evil spirits at bay, which might otherwise exercise their harmful influence at life’s important rites of passage,” explain the authors of a recent study on ritual plants in different religions.

Similarly, ancient Greek and Roman mourners often carried sprigs of rosemary in funeral processions and placed them on the body of the deceased at the burial site. The plant’s evergreen leaves symbolized the soul’s immortality, and its aroma hid the odor of decay. Rosemary is still used in funerals today, mainly by Christians in Europe. In 2022, the herb was part of the floral arrangement that adorned Queen Elizabeth II’s casket.

Ancient cultures also recognized the herb’s medicinal properties. Rosemary provided relief for a range of ailments, including pain, inflammation, and indigestion. Physician Pedanius Dioscorides included rosemary in his most famous work, De Materia Medica, a first-century Greek encyclopedia on herbal medicine. According to him, rosemary “is warming and cures jaundice…It is also mixed with remedies for the removal of fatigue.” An even earlier Greek physician often referred to as the “Father of Medicine,” Hippocrates, treated joint pain with ointments made of rosemary flowers and leaves macerated in olive oil.

Additionally, the herb was used as a mnemonic enhancer. In Greece and Rome, students wore crowns of rosemary during examinations to improve their memory. Recent studies seem to substantiate these traditional benefits; consuming rosemary or breathing in its scent have been shown to improve memory and other cognitive functions.

Rosemary in Literature

Humanity’s longstanding use and appreciation of rosemary gave way to numerous mentions of the plant in literature. Perhaps the most famous example is in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. As Ophelia mourns the tragic death of her father, Polonius, and descends into madness, she distributes imaginary flowers to those she meets.

“There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. / Pray you, love, remember,” she says.

Here, Shakespeare honors the herb’s associations with memory and grief. Ophelia, even in her delusion, wants others to remember her late father and the events that led to his demise. Some scholars, including John Dwyer, speculate that Ophelia’s imagined bouquet also symbolizes her lost innocence.

“Modern readers may not realize that most of the plants mentioned by Ophelia were widely known and used in Elizabethan England to induce abortions and control fertility,” he writes.

Rosemary is believed to stimulate uterine contractions and increase menstrual flow. In sixteenth-century herbals, such as that written by William Turner (1568), the plant was said to “bringeth down women’s fleurs,” writes Lucile F. Newman. Dwyer argues that the inclusion of rosemary and other herbs and flowers with similar effects would have shocked Elizabethan audiences, reinforcing the devastating consequences of Ophelia’s loss.

Shakespeare also brings rosemary into the worlds of Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale. In the former, he embraces the herb’s funerary significance. After finding Juliet’s body in a deathlike trance, the friar tells her loved ones, “Dry up your tears, and stick your rosemary / On this fair [corpse].” In The Winter’s Tale, Perdita echoes Ophelia’s sentiment and presents the herb at a sheep-shearing festival as a symbol of remembrance and grace:

For you there’s rosemary and rue. These keep
Seeming and savor all the winter long.
Grace and remembrance be to you both,
And welcome to our shearing.

In Don Quixote, Shakespeare’s contemporary Miguel de Cervantes also alludes to rosemary’s medicinal properties. The hero uses rosemary, oil, wine, and salt to make the Balsam of Fierabras—a miraculous substance meant to heal whoever drinks it. By contrast, seventeenth-century English lyric poet Robert Herrick points to the herb’s use as a holiday ornament in “Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve,” which celebrates the transition from Christmas to Easter through the changing of seasonal decorations. Rosemary is the first to go, he writes: “Down with the rosemary and bays.”

Cultivation for Home and Health

Today, rosemary has naturalized throughout much of Europe and North America and is grown in warm climates around the world. The herb has evolved to withstand drought, with waxy leaves that minimize water loss and a deep root system that can access moisture even in poor soil. The plant’s resilience, pleasant aroma, and evergreen ornamental value are appealing to home gardeners and landscape architects alike.

“It doesn’t matter what you throw at it—drought, snow, high winds, dust from nearby building projects—it just keeps shining through,” writes garden writer Sonya Patel Ellis.

The herb is also widely cultivated for cosmetics and cooking. Health food stores and luxury bath shops offer a host of rosemary products, from essential oils and supplements to scented soaps, creams, and lotions. While some of them are ascribed medicinal benefits, more research is needed to evaluate their effects. In the culinary world, rosemary’s pungent, piney flavor with notes of citrus accompanies poultry dishes, stews, salads, cocktails, and more. According to food writer Molly O’Neill, “Used judiciously, rosemary performs a subtle magic in cooking. The herb brings a hint of forest and briny sea air, camphorlike and breezy, to anything.”

Rosemary’s legacy has shaped the way we grieve, heal, and celebrate.

“Two faithful virtues, constancy to the living and remembrance of the lost, have always been close entwined about the rosemary branch,” wrote British horticultural writer Ernest Thomas Cook at the turn of the twentieth century.

This month, let us honor the herb of remembrance by reflecting on its many contributions to our cultural history, from antiquity through the present. Such is the mission of the Dumbarton Oaks Plant Humanities Initiative: to explore the interconnectedness of plants and people.

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