It’s Flower Friday around here, so it’s time for us to dive into another type of flower. We featured this one last year, but it’s so cool that it deserves another pass!
You might know this flower by it’s common name, Love-In-A-Mist, but the official genus is called Nigella. This is a somewhat small genus in the flower kingdom with only 18 known species. Even if this one’s new to you, you might be more familiar with the family of flowers, which is called Ranunculus. A very popular northern flower in this same family is Delphinium.
This specific variety, the true “Love-In-A-Mist” type, is called Nigella damascena. It gained its original popularity in the cottage gardens of England as far back as the Elizabethan era in the late 1500’s. While it is native to Europe, it can also be found in southwest Asia and northern Africa, most commonly growing in various wetlands.
While this variety is ornamental in nature, the Nigella sativa genus features some use in culinary application. The spice known as black cumin (sometimes called black caraway or black coriander) is derived from this species. While this spice may not see vast popularity in North America, it is used in Polish, Middle Eastern, Ethiopian and South Asian cuisine. The seeds are high in nutritional value, providing fiber, iron, sodium, calcium, potassium, amino acids and several other beneficial human nutrients.
Where Nigella sativa really excels is in its medicinal applications, it’s incredibly bioactive. It has been recognized in Ayurvedic medicine for thousands of years and also has caught the interests of modern pharmaceuticals. It provides many natural medicine benefits including reducing blood sugar spikes, liver protection, reduction of inflammation, remediation of joint pain and can lower LDL cholesterol. It’s also known to improve cognitive ability, benefit sleep quality, helps with kidney health, may aid in deactivation of cancer cells, can improve skin health and many other health benefits.
Black cumin can also be reduced into an oil, which is often known as black seed oil, which can be used in both culinary and medicinal applications. Similar to the health benefits of consuming black cumin itself, this oil also provides a number of health focused benefits as well. It is also a high source of Omega 6, containing almost 60% linoleic acid.
Given the vast use of Nigella sativa in naturopathy, it has also been the subject of numerous scientific studies as well. These studies have shown great promise with anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal, antihistamine, anti-viral, antibacterial and anti-oxidative properties. It has long been speculated that Nigella sativa could even be a remedy for particular diseases.
We truly enjoy this flower and it has quickly come into one of our favorites for container growing and cut flower arrangements. At some point, we do want to explore growing the Nigella sativa species, with the goal of harvesting our own black cumin. While this other species is perhaps less attractive than this ornamental variety, we are impressed by its potential health benefits and would like to explore using it in our cooking.
