Rosemary is an evergreen woody perennial shrub. Blooms are small and light blue. As a Mediterranean plant that is biologically active when the weather is seasonally cool, rosemary looks much better during winter and struggles from July to September during the extreme desert summer heat without some protection. Upright and prostrate forms such as the cultivar 'Tuscan Blue', are used in herb gardens. It is said that rosemary got its name from the Virgin Mary. Rosemary is also an old French term for incense. Because Rosemary was easily harvested from the wild in and around ancient Mediterranean cultures (think ancient Roman, Greek, Spartan, and Trojan), it was an incense used by the poor or lower classes as a substitute for the more expensive frankincense or myrrh-based incense of the rich folks.
