Is Lemon Balm the Same as Lemon Verbena?

Lemon balm and lemon verbena are two entirely different plants that happen to share a lemony aroma, which is the root of the confusion. Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) belongs to the mint family and is native to southern Europe and the Mediterranean. Lemon verbena (Aloysia citrodora, sometimes listed as Lippia citriodora) belongs to the verbena family and originally comes from South America. They look different, grow differently, and have distinct research profiles, yet they get mixed up constantly in grocery stores, herbal tea aisles, and online searches.

How to Tell Them Apart in Person

The easiest way to distinguish the two is by looking at the leaves. Lemon balm has soft, crinkly, rounded leaves with scalloped edges that look a lot like other plants in the mint family. The stems are square, which is a giveaway for mint relatives, and the plant grows in a low, bushy mound that rarely exceeds about two feet. It is a hardy perennial in most temperate climates and, like many mints, can spread aggressively in a garden if left unchecked.

Lemon verbena, on the other hand, has long, narrow, pointed leaves with smooth edges and a slightly glossy surface. The plant grows as a woody shrub that can reach five or six feet tall in warm climates. It is deciduous and far less cold-hardy than lemon balm, often losing its leaves entirely in winter and dying back to the ground in anything colder than a mild frost. In cooler regions it is commonly grown in pots and brought indoors. The growth habit alone makes them hard to confuse once you have seen both side by side, but dried and crumbled in a tea blend, the visual cues disappear, and the similar scent takes over.

Why They Smell So Similar

The overlap in aroma is not a coincidence. Both plants produce high concentrations of the same pair of molecules, geranial and neral, which together are known as citral. Citral is the compound responsible for the sharp, bright lemon scent found in actual lemon peel, lemongrass, and a number of other unrelated plants. Analysis of lemon balm essential oil from Algerian plants found geranial at about 44% and neral at about 30%, making citral the overwhelming majority of the oil’s composition.¹ Lemon verbena essential oil tells a similar story, with geranial at roughly 27% and neral at about 20%.²

That shared citral backbone is why, in a blind sniff test, many people cannot tell the two apart. The lemon note is front and center in both. But the supporting cast of aromatic compounds differs. Lemon balm’s essential oil carries citronellal as a secondary component, which gives it a slightly rounder, more floral quality. Lemon verbena’s oil includes compounds like spathulenol, limonene, and caryophyllene oxide, which lend it a sharper, slightly more complex citrus-and-spice character.² If you crush a fresh leaf of each between your fingers, the difference becomes clearer: lemon balm tends to smell a little greener and mintier once the initial lemon hit fades, while lemon verbena stays more purely, intensely citrus.

Cooking and Tea with Each Plant

In the kitchen, the two herbs are sometimes treated as interchangeable, but they have different strengths. Lemon verbena is prized in French and South American cooking for its intense, clean lemon flavor, which holds up well in desserts, syrups, and cold drinks. It is a classic addition to fruit salads, crème brûlée, and herbal liqueurs. Because its flavor is so concentrated, a little goes a long way. Lemon balm, by contrast, has a milder, grassier lemon taste that works well in salads, pestos, and lighter dishes but tends to fade quickly when cooked. It pairs naturally with other soft herbs like mint and chives.

For herbal tea, lemon verbena generally produces a brighter, more purely citrus cup. Lemon balm tea is gentler and slightly more herbaceous. You can substitute one for the other in a pinch, but the results will not be identical. Lemon verbena delivers a sharper lemon punch; lemon balm brings a subtler, more rounded warmth. Neither is better. They are just different tools. If a recipe calls for one and you only have the other, adjust the quantity and expect a flavor shift rather than a direct swap.

Where the Health Research Diverges

This is where the distinction between the two plants matters most, because they have been studied for quite different purposes. Treating one as a stand-in for the other based on health claims would be a mistake.

Lemon Balm and the Nervous System

Lemon balm has a long folk history as a calming herb, and modern research has started to build a case for why that reputation exists. The plant contains rosmarinic acid along with triterpenoids like oleanolic acid and ursolic acid, which appear to inhibit an enzyme called GABA transaminase. That enzyme normally breaks down GABA, a neurotransmitter that helps dial down nervous system activity. By slowing the enzyme, lemon balm compounds may allow GABA levels in the brain to stay elevated for longer, producing a calming effect.³ Animal studies using a standardized lemon balm extract showed reduced anxiety-like behavior under moderate stress conditions without altering overall activity levels, suggesting the effect is calming rather than sedating.⁴

A broader review of the human evidence suggests lemon balm holds promise not just for anxiety but also for mood, cognitive function, and sleep quality, with its activity touching GABAergic, cholinergic, and serotonergic brain pathways.⁵ That multi-pathway activity is unusual for a single herb and helps explain why lemon balm shows up in such a range of traditional uses, from soothing nerves to sharpening memory.

Lemon Verbena and Muscle Recovery

Lemon verbena research has gone in a completely different direction. Rather than the brain, the focus has been on exercise-related muscle damage and oxidative stress. A randomized, placebo-controlled trial found that participants taking a lemon verbena extract experienced less exercise-related loss of muscle strength and a trend toward reduced pain after exhaustive exercise compared to placebo.⁶ Another trial reported that supplementation reduced markers of muscle damage including creatine kinase and interleukin-6 levels, while also lowering muscle pain after intense exercise.⁷

Research on chronic exercise paints a similar picture. In endurance athletes, moderate lemon verbena supplementation protected against oxidative damage to proteins and lipids without blocking the normal cellular adaptations that make training effective, and it reduced signs of muscle tissue damage.⁸ That last point is worth emphasizing: a common concern with antioxidant supplements is that they might blunt the body’s adaptive response to training. The lemon verbena research specifically checked for this and found the protective effect came without that tradeoff.

Lemon verbena has also been studied for sleep. A randomized, double-blind trial in healthy adults found that those taking a lemon verbena extract had better sleep quality scores, shorter time to fall asleep, and higher sleep efficiency compared to placebo, as measured by both questionnaires and wrist-worn sleep trackers.⁹ So both plants have some connection to relaxation and sleep, but through different mechanisms and with different supporting evidence.

Lemon Balm’s Antiviral Research

One area where lemon balm stands alone in the research is antiviral activity, particularly against herpes simplex viruses. Lab studies have shown that lemon balm extract can reduce the damage that herpes simplex virus type 2 causes to cells, with the maximum inhibiting effect reaching about 60% at tested concentrations. The mechanism appears to work after the virus has already entered the cell, rather than by blocking entry.¹⁰ A broader review has noted that lemon balm and its compounds show activity against several viruses, including herpes simplex, through mechanisms like inhibiting viral binding and replication.¹¹

Topical lemon balm creams for cold sores have been available in Europe for years, and the lab evidence gives some scientific grounding to that use. Lemon verbena has not been studied in this way, so anyone seeking herbal support for cold sores specifically would want lemon balm, not lemon verbena. This is a concrete example of why confusing the two plants can lead to the wrong product on your shelf.

Thyroid Considerations

Lemon balm has a particular interaction that people with thyroid conditions should know about. It has been identified among a group of herbs whose phytochemicals may modulate thyroid hormone synthesis and the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis.¹² In traditional herbal practice, lemon balm has been used specifically in the context of overactive thyroid, and some herbalists recommend it for mild hyperthyroid symptoms. The flip side is that anyone with an underactive thyroid or anyone taking thyroid medication should be cautious with lemon balm supplements, since the herb could theoretically interfere with thyroid function or medication effectiveness.

Lemon verbena does not carry this same flag in the research literature. This is another situation where the two plants are clearly not interchangeable: one has a documented relationship with thyroid function, and the other does not.

Safety Profiles

Both plants have generally reassuring safety data, but the specifics differ. For lemon balm, a formal toxicological evaluation of an aqueous extract found no genotoxicity at concentrations up to the highest levels tested, and a 90-day study in animals reported no adverse effects on clinical, blood, biochemical, or tissue parameters at the highest doses administered.¹³ That is about as clean a safety profile as you get in formal testing.

Lemon verbena’s safety has been assessed more indirectly through the clinical trials on exercise recovery, where no concerning side effects were reported at the supplementation doses used.⁷ Both plants have long histories of use as food and tea ingredients, which provides a baseline level of confidence. As with any supplement, though, concentrated extracts are a different animal than a cup of tea, and the thyroid interaction mentioned above is a reminder that “herbal” does not automatically mean “harmless for everyone.”

Lemon Balm in Skin Care

An area of emerging research for lemon balm involves skin biology. Laboratory work on skin cell models has found that lemon balm extract and its rosmarinic acid content significantly improved the survival of skin cells exposed to UVB radiation. The extract reduced the production of reactive oxygen species triggered by UV light and lessened UV-induced DNA damage, as measured by both DNA strand breaks and markers of the DNA damage response. On top of the protective effects, the extract also promoted melanogenesis, the process by which skin produces melanin pigment.¹⁴

These are cell-culture findings, not clinical trials on human skin, so it is too early to claim that lemon balm sunscreen is around the corner. But the dual action of protecting against UV damage while boosting melanin production is an interesting combination that has caught the attention of cosmetic researchers. Lemon verbena has not been explored in this specific context, though its general antioxidant properties have been noted in the exercise literature.

The Adulteration Problem

One practical concern with herbal products is that what is on the label is not always what is in the package. Lemon balm is among a group of herbal teas for which molecular authentication methods have been developed to verify botanical identity. Researchers have created DNA-based assays targeting specific genetic markers that can reliably distinguish lemon balm from other herbal species in teas and blends.¹⁵ The fact that such tools are needed tells you something about how common mislabeling and substitution are in the herbal market.

Lemon verbena and lemon balm being confused by consumers is one layer of the problem, but intentional or accidental substitution by suppliers is another. Cheaper or more readily available herbs can end up in products labeled as something more specific. If you are buying either plant for a particular health purpose rather than just flavor, sourcing from a reputable supplier who can verify botanical identity matters more than brand recognition or attractive packaging. Look for products that identify the plant by its Latin binomial name on the label: Melissa officinalis for lemon balm, Aloysia citrodora (or Lippia citriodora) for lemon verbena.

Other Plants in the Lemon-Scented Family

Part of the confusion between lemon balm and lemon verbena is that there is a whole constellation of unrelated plants that share a lemon scent. Lemon thyme, lemon basil, lemon catnip, and lemon monarda are all members of the mint family along with lemon balm, and they all owe their citrus aroma to varying concentrations of the same citral compounds.¹⁶ Lemongrass, which is a tropical grass, also gets its scent from citral. And then there is lemon verbena, arriving from a completely separate plant family with its own version of the same chemistry.

The pattern is a good example of convergent evolution in plant biochemistry. Citral production has emerged independently in many plant lineages, likely because the compound serves as an insect repellent and antimicrobial agent for the plant itself. Humans just happen to find the resulting smell pleasant, which is why we have domesticated so many of these unrelated species and given them all confusingly similar common names. If you walk through a well-stocked herb garden, you might encounter half a dozen “lemon” herbs that belong to three or four different plant families. The name describes the scent, not the family tree, which is why relying on common names alone when shopping for a specific herbal product is a recipe for ending up with the wrong plant entirely.