Bādranjbūye

Bādranjbūye is one of the most applicable medicinal plants in Persian medicine and administered by Persian medicine scholars as a euphoric, brain tonic, memory enhancer, cardiotonic and anti-dyspnea agent. There are various opinions about its botanical definition in Persian medicine literature however, there is no unique concept about its identity. In this paper, all plant species related to Bādranjbūye were investigated and their botanical definitions were compared with each other to see what is told about their identity in Persian medicine. Nowadays, three plant species including Melissa officinalis L., Asperugo procumbens L. and Dracocephalum modavica L. are proposed as Bādranjbūye. The investigation demonstrated that the definition of Bādranjbūye in Persian medicine mainly corresponds to characteristics of Melissa officinalis from the family of Labiatae and in some situations corresponds to Dracocephalum moldavica from the family of Labiatae. However, since Asperugo procumbens from the family of Boraginaceae was found enormously in the habitat of Melissa officinalis, the considerable amount of this plant inevitably exists with Melissa officinalis. Therefore, most of the samples from the herbal market belongs to Asperugo procumbens.