Calling all herb geeks

[annathepiper]

So I have a small point of research I'm trying to figure out for Lament of the Dove, and my point of research is this:

I have a situation where my girl Faanshi needs to make a clever suggestion to another character about how to get some serious stink off his hands. kathrynt suggested that she should point out some herbs growing wild near his house that he might use, but while I'm finding references to several strongly aromatic herbs poking around Wikipedia and a couple of other sites, I'm not entirely sure yet what might be the best suggestion for her to make. Also, I'm not entirely certain how she ought to suggest the other character use them in the first place.

Anybody out there have any thoughts on the topic? Let me hear 'em! Right now the main candidates jockeying for my attention are hyssop, lavender, chamomile, lemon balm, pennyroyal, basil, and meadowsweet. (I know several of these have other uses, but these are the main interesting aromatic herbs I've been reading about tonight.)

Comments

[annathepiper]

Parsley got mentioned to me by kathrynt, too.

The challenge I have aside from which herbs Faanshi should use, too, is what she can do with them to accomplish the task at hand. She has a couple of days in which she and the other characters will be hanging out at this guy's remote little cottage, so she's got some time to kill. However, I suspect that making actual soap would be beyond her.

Any thoughts on what she could do?

[chamois-shimi.livejournal.com]

Soapwort's not actual soap (nor used to make soap), despite it's name- it's got little pink flowers, and has lots of other names. It looks like it's native to temperate climates- so whether your character would find it in a Mediterranean type place, I'm not sure. Maybe it's not common, but grows in some north-facing, partly shady, cooler spot? ;)

Found this link for you- I had *no* idea of the other uses for the plant. Interesting!

http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/nmdrugprofiles/herbaldrugs/102620.shtml

[annathepiper]

Yeah, I picked up on the nature of soapwort just by looking it up on various places--the part that interested me was the part about it making suds when you take the crushed roots and mix 'em up with water. What I've wound up doing is having Faanshi mentioning crushing the root of that up, tossing several other fragrant herbs in with it, and mixing the lot up with salt to make it gritty. kathrynt proclaimed this as something she'd "buy in a fantasy novel", so at least for this draft, that's going to be what's in there. We'll see what happens when I come back around for the first edit pass!

And thanks for the link and your input, it is much appreciated. :)