So I had to pull up some huge rosemary plants in the front yard to have some plumbing work done. I noticed that the rosemary I’ve bought to replace it has completely different leaves. The old plant was more like an evergreen with oily needle-like leaves. The new plant has soft flat leaves but still smells like rosemary.
Are these two plants actually related? Are they both edible? The “evergreen” One was fairly hearty and grew quickly. Will the other variety act the same?
Culinary herbs like rosemary have tons of varieties. This is likely the reason but they should both be fine to eat.
The number of different basil varieties / cultivars in Culinary Basil (Ocimum basilicum) is mind blowing. That isn’t even counting the different species of basil such as holy basil (Ocimum tenuiflorum).