MENTHA PIPERITA. 
the plant be cut in wet weather it changes to black and is 
little worth. 
The root of the plant is creeping; the stem quadrangular 
and channelled, nearly upright, and about two feet high, 
branching, purplish, and rather hairy with the hairs bent back- 
wards. The leaves are of a dark-green color, opposite, peti- 
olate, ovate, rather pointed, serrated, the upper side smoother 
and less pubescent than the under, which is paler with white 
and purple veins. ‘The flowers are in terminal spikes, solitary, 
almost capitate, interrupted beneath, with the lower whorl 
more remote, and on a footstalk. The bracts are lanceolate 
and ciliated. The calyx is furrowed, tender, studded with 
glandular points. The base entirely naked, very smooth and 
five-cleft, with the teeth of a blackish purple color, ciliated. 
The corolla is purple, and conceals within its tube the anthers, 
which are on short filaments. The germen is four-cleft, with 
a filiform style longer than the corolla, and furnished with a 
bifid stigma. The four-cleft germ is converted into four seeds, 
lodged in the calyx. ; 
Sir J. E. Smith supposes that this plant was discovered by 
Dr. Eales, and says that what is called Peppermint in the 
North of Europe is merely a variety of Mentha hirsuta, hav- 
ing a similar odor, and is the Mentha piperita of the Linnean 
herbarium. 
CHEMICAL AND MEDICAL PROPERTIES AND USES. 
The whole plant is officinal. The odor of both the recent 
and dried plant is peculiar and well known, aromatic, pene- 
trating, and grateful, in some degree resembling camphor; and. 
the taste pungent, warm, glowing, and bitterish, followed by — 
a sensation of coldness when air is drawn into the mouth. It 
gives out its properties to alcohol and partly to water. It con- 
tains volatile oil, a bitter principle, resin, tannic acid, and woody 
fibre. The oil can’ be obtained separate by distillation. It is 
colorless, but becomes yellowish or even reddish by age. It 
has a powerful aromatic odor, and an extremely pungent taste. 
The camphor it contains is isomeric with the oil. 
Peppermint is empl@¥ed in medicine for several purposes. 
It is stomachic, stimulant, antispasmodic, and carminative. 
It is chiefly used to allay nausea and griping, to relieve flatu- 
lent colic, and in hysteria; or as a vehicle to cover the nause- _ 
ous taste of other medicines. It is, however, to many palates _ 
extremely disagreeable. The fresh herb, bruised and applied 
over the epigastrium, often allays sick stomach, and is espe- - 
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