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About Wild Bergamot

Monarda fistulosa, wild bergamot or bee balm, is a fragrant North American native perennial found across most of the continent from Quebec to British Columbia and south to Mexico. It produces rounded clusters of tubular lavender-pink flowers atop square stems, each head resembling a natural firework burst. The entire plant is intensely aromatic, with leaves that smell like oregano crossed with Earl Grey tea — in fact, the common name 'bergamot' comes from its resemblance to the fragrance of bergamot orange used in Earl Grey. Growing 60–120 cm tall, it spreads by rhizomes to form attractive colonies. It is one of the most valuable plants for native bee support, attracting over 100 species of native bees plus butterflies, moths, and hummingbirds. It thrives in average to dry soil in full sun and is more mildew-resistant than its scarlet cousin M. didyma. The leaves make a pleasant herbal tea and have long been used in traditional medicine.

• Fragrant
• Medicinal
• Native
• Pollinator-friendly

How to care for Wild Bergamot

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At a Glance

Bloom time

Fragrance

Toxicity

History

Monarda fistulosa is native to most of North America from southern Canada to northern Mexico, growing in prairie, meadow, open woodland, and roadside habitats across an exceptionally wide ecological range. It produces lavender-purple heads of tubular flowers in summer, with a characteristic scruffy whorl of bracts below each flower head. The leaves contain a mix of aromatic compounds including thymol, carvacrol, and geraniol, giving them a strong fragrance reminiscent of Italian bergamot orange — hence the common name "wild bergamot." Indigenous North American peoples across the species' range used M. fistulosa and its close relative M. didyma (scarlet bee balm) extensively in traditional medicine and as a food flavoring.

Following the Boston Tea Party of 1773 and the subsequent colonial American boycott of British tea, colonial households adopted wild bergamot leaf tea — which they called "Oswego tea" after the Oswego River Mohawk Nation people who had taught New York settlers the use — as a substitute for Chinese black tea, making Monarda an indirect player in the lead-up to the American Revolution. In the modern garden, both M. fistulosa and the closely-related M. didyma (and their hybrids) are major nectar sources for hummingbirds, bumblebees, native solitary bees, and sphinx moths; they are central components of pollinator-garden and native-plant design, though they are often troubled by powdery mildew — modern resistant cultivars including "Jacob Cline," "Marshall's Delight," and "Claire Grace" offer improved disease performance. Monarda fistulosa was one of the most widely used medicinal plants among North American Indigenous peoples.

The Ojibwe, Blackfoot, Menominee, and many other nations used leaf infusions to treat colds, fevers, headaches, and digestive complaints. The thymol-rich essential oil has genuine antiseptic properties, validated by modern research. After the Boston Tea Party in 1773, American colonists adopted Monarda tea as a patriotic substitute for imported English tea, calling it 'Oswego tea.' The genus is named after Nicolás Monardes, a 16th-century Spanish physician who wrote the first European book on New World medicinal plants — though ironically he never visited the Americas.

Symbolism & meaning

Related plants

More Monarda plants

• Eastern BeebalmMonarda bradburiana
• Lemon BeebalmMonarda citriodora
• White BergamotMonarda clinopodia
• Scarlet BeebalmMonarda didyma

Plants with similar care

• Chinese AbeliaAbelia chinensis
• Fragrant AbeliaAbelia mosanensis
• Large-Flowered AbeliaAbelia uniflora
• Glossy AbeliaAbelia x grandiflora

Frequently asked questions