Mrihani

'Mrihani' is arguably the most consequential basil accession to reach the West in the past thirty years. Richo Cech was given the seed by a grower on the north end of Pemba Island in the Zanzibar Archipelago, Tanzania, in 1990; it moved through his Horizon Herbs and Strictly Medicinal catalogue, then to Frank Morton at Wild Garden Seed, and from there to Experimental Farm Network, Siskiyou Seeds, Pinetree and others. When Rutgers screened thousands of basil seedlings hunting for resistance to basil downy mildew, this Zanzibar entry was the one unusual variety that held up, and phylogenetic work confirmed it genuinely is Ocimum basilicum, meaning it could be crossed with commercial sweet basil instead of sitting genetically out of reach. Rutgers began crossing it in 2011 and, after five years of field selection in New Jersey and Florida, released Obsession DMR, Devotion DMR, Passion DMR and Thunderstruck DMR from it. As a garden plant in its own right it is worth growing simply because it looks and smells nothing like the Italian, Thai or holy basils sharing the bed.