No. 0291 · Ocimum tenuiflorum
Temple Basil
- Crop
- Herb
- Climate
- Tropical
- Season
- Summer
- Origin
- Chiang Mai, Thailand
No. 0291The variety
A purple-stemmed holy basil grown in temple gardens, with a clove-like perfume that deepens as it dries.
Grows best inSteady heat and humid air
Seed passport
Perennial Seed Library · Season 2026
- Origin
- Chiang Mai, Thailand
- First documented
- 1971
- Days to maturity
- 60 days to first harvest
- Height
- 50 to 70 cm
- Hardiness
- Frost tender; a perennial in the tropics
- Sun
- Full sun to light shade
- Spacing
- 30 cm
- Flavor notes
- Clove, pepper and a cooling finish
No. 0291Growth timeline
From sowing to saving seed.
Stage 01 of 06
No. 0291Story
The story of Temple Basil
Holy basil is grown at the gates of temples across Southeast Asia, and this purple-stemmed strain was kept at a small temple outside Chiang Mai, where the monks traded seed with neighboring villages every dry season. Its leaves are smaller and more peppery than sweet basil, and their clove perfume grows stronger as they dry.
It reached the library in 2015 through a grower who had lived beside the temple for a decade. In the tropics it is a short-lived perennial. Elsewhere it is grown as a summer annual and needs real warmth to flourish.
Grown by
2 growers this season
Priya Nair
Thrissur, Kerala, India
Luzviminda Agbayani
Ilocos Norte, Philippines
Lending list · Season 2026
Borrow this seed.
Members borrow up to twelve varieties a year. Seed is posted on the first Monday of the month in a hand-numbered paper packet, and all we ask in return is a little of your harvest and a few lines about how it grew.