The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 3 plus 4 letter word POT HERB
I've seen this crossword clue in The Sunday Telegraph
P
O
T
H
E
R
B
More clues leading to the result POT HERB
- Plant is different when covered in lead
- Vegetable adding flavour if cooking mostly pea broth
- Basil, for instance, or alternative person in lead
- Sage perhaps makes fuss over book
- Fuss over black thing growing in the garden?
- Commotion associated with black flavouring ingredient
- Vacated pub into which brought different fragrant plantÂ
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "Basil, for instance" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case basil, for instance = pot herb.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.