About Vetiver

The Plant

Native to India, vetiver is an enormous fragrant grass closely related to palmarosa, citronella, and lemongrass.  Vetiver can grow 1.5 meters high, and the roots can extend 3 meters deep, making the root harvest a challenging proposition! Unlike the other fragrant grasses (whose leaves are used for distillation), Vetiver is cultivated for the oil that exists only in the roots.

This means that instead of 2 or 3 cuttings a year, vetiver only produces one harvest every 18 to 24 months, because the plant must be completely extracted from the ground.  The roots are harvested in the winter, when the oil content is the highest.  Vetiver was recently recategorized from Vetiveria zizanioides to Chrysopogon zizanioides.

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