Myrtle: Magical Properties & Uses

Myrtle is worked chiefly for love that lasts, rather than love newly begun: fidelity, marriage and the peace of a settled home. Sprigs are carried or worn at weddings for a happy and lasting union, and the living plant is kept by the door as a quiet guardian of domestic harmony. It pairs naturally with rose in love workings aimed at commitment rather than pursuit.

In Mediterranean folk practice, myrtle leaves were used as an antiseptic wash and steeped for respiratory complaints. The berries are distilled into mirto, a traditional Sardinian liqueur, and myrtle oil appears in older European pharmacopoeias as a mild astringent.

Aphrodite, Venus

Pausanias records a myrtle tree within Aphrodite's sanctuary at Argos, and the plant was sacred to her across the Greek world. Roman brides wore myrtle wreaths, a custom Pliny the Elder notes in his Natural History. Culpeper later placed myrtle under the rulership of Venus in his Complete Herbal, carrying the association into English herbal tradition. The custom persists today: myrtle from a cutting first carried by Queen Victoria has appeared in British royal wedding bouquets ever since, including Catherine Middleton's in 2011.