Agastache foeniculum
Origin: Duluth, Minnesota
Improvement status: Cultivated material
Seeds per packet: ~300
Germination tested 11/2023: 51%
Life cycle: Perennial
Our new collaborator Lorna Koestner stewards these strikingly beautiful, dark-purple-flowered anise-hyssop in Duluth, MN. Anise-hyssop is a native culinary and medicinal herb with flowers beloved by pollinators. You may find it attracting hummingbirds, butterflies, bumblebees, honeybees, carpenter bees, mason bees, and hummingbird-moths! Easy to direct seed, it is likely to naturalize in ideal conditions. This strain has much darker color than most other strains of anise-hyssop. Lorna grows it in various spots around Duluth, demonstrating the possibilities for ecological diversity and beauty in an industrial part of town.
The leaves are wonderful in tea! Like licorice.