Yerba Buena
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
| Yerba buena | ||||||||||||||
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| Clinopodium douglasii (Benth.) Kuntze | ||||||||||||||
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Yerba Buena (Clinopodium douglasii) is a sprawling aromatic herb of the western and northwestern United States, western Canada and Alaska. Another local name for this plant is Oregon tea, referring to its use as both a medicinal and refreshing tea. Its name, an alternate form of hierba buena, which means "good herb" was given it by the Spanish priests of California.
San Francisco, California was named Nova Albion by Sir Francis Drake, around 1579. On July 9, 1846, Captain John B. Montgomery renamed it Yerba Buena after this plant. It was finally renamed San Francisco, after Saint Francis of Assisi, on January 30, 1847. However, the name of the herb lives on at Yerba Buena Island, which sits in San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland.
