Herb to Know: Dame's Rocket

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Worth growing for its delicious ­­­­­­fra­grance­ alone, dame’s rocket also offers showy, long-lasting flowers and is as trouble-free an herb as you could ask for. Its multitude of common names attests to centuries of cultivation in gardens and to the high regard in which it has been held. Dame’s or sweet rocket, dame’s or damask violet, rogue’s or queen’s gilliflower, vesper flower, mother-of-the-evening: many of the names allude to its sweet scent—likened to a mixture of clove and violet—and to the time of day when that scent is released into the air. The name damask violet may be an association with the fragrant damask rose (Rosa damascena), or perhaps someone confused “damask” with “dame”. The name gilliflower was originally applied to pinks and carnations (Dianthus spp.), many of which have a clove scent. The generic name, Hesperis, comes from the Greek hesperos, “evening”, and matronalis, is Latin for “of a married woman”.

The genus Hesperis consists of about sixty biennial or perennial herbs native to the Mediterranean region and central Asia, of which dame’s rocket is the only species that is cultivated extensively. Its value as an ornamental led to its introduction as a garden flower throughout Europe, where it subsequently naturalized. During the seventeenth century, it arrived in America as a garden flower, escaped, and now grows wild in damp woods, along roadsides, and in fields and waste areas in eastern North America from Newfoundland and Ontario south to Georgia and west to Kansas.

Dame’s rocket is an erect, branching plant that may reach 4 feet tall and 18 inches wide. Its roots, according to the English herbalist Gerard, are “slender and threddie”, and its pointed, hairy alternate leaves are “somewhat snipt about the edges”; the lower ones have short stalks and may be as long as 4 inches, while the upper ones are stalkless and smaller. Loose terminal clusters of four-petaled, 3/4-inch-wide lavender, pink, or white flowers bloom in the late spring and early summer. At a casual glance, dame’s rocket may be mistaken for phlox, but phlox’s flowers have five petals. Double-flowered forms are highly prized, but today they are not readily available in the United States. Perhaps that is just as well: the British plantsman Graham Stuart Thomas has described them as “highly temperamental”. The flowers are followed by 4-inch-long, slender seedpods that are filled with pitted oblong brown seeds. The four-petaled flowers and skinny pods are evidence of this herb’s membership in the mustard family.

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