The 8-centimetre-long (3 in), glossy, pointed leaves are slightly rough to the touch and emit a strong lemon scent when bruised (hence the Latin specific epithet citrodora—lemon-scented).

[9] However, lemon verbena oil is generally recognized as safe (GRAS) by the US Food and Drug Administration when used as a flavoring.

[15] The first European botanist who publicly noticed this plant was the French Philibert Commerson, who collected it in Buenos Aires on his botanical circumnavigation with Bougainville, about 1767.

[failed verification] The plant had already been imported directly into the Real Jardín Botánico de Madrid, where in 1797 professors Casimiro Gómez Ortega and Antonio Palau y Verdera [es] named it, though they did not yet effectively publish it, Aloysia citriodora in Latin and "Hierba de la Princesa" in Spanish,[16] to compliment Maria Louisa of Parma, Princess of Asturias the wife of the Garden's patron Infante Carlos de Borbon, Prince of Asturias and son of king Carlos III.

[citation needed] Unofficial importations from Spanish America seldom fared well: when another French botanist Joseph Dombey landed his collections at Cadiz in 1785, the plants were impounded and left to rot in warehouses, while Dombey was refused permission even to have seeds planted.

[2] From Paris John Sibthorp, professor of botany at Oxford, obtained the specimen that he introduced to British horticulture:[18] by 1797 lemon verbena was common in greenhouses around London, and its popularity as essential in a fragrant bouquet increased through the following century.

[citation needed] This plant has gained the Royal Horticultural Society's Award of Garden Merit.