MENTHA VIRIDIS. ORD. XIX. Verticillate. 339 
THE root is perennial, creeping, and beset with numerous small 
fibres: the stems are square, hollow, erect, branched, and rise 
above two feet in height: the leaves are large, elliptical, serrated, 
pointed, of a bright green colour, and placed in pairs close to the 
stem, or upon very short footstalks: the flowers are small, purplish, 
and produced in terminal spikes: the filaments are longer than the 
corolla, In other respects the different parts of the flower cor- 
respond with the description given of the pepper-mint. It flowers 
in August. 
This plant grows wild in many parts of England, and was found 
on the banks of the Thames by Mr. Hudson; * but it is more rarely 
met with in this state than the preceding species. It is not so warm 
to the taste as pepper-mint, but has a more agreeable flavour, and 
is therefore preferred for culinary uses, and more generally culti- 
vated in our gardens. Many virtues are ascribed to mint by the 
ancients, but to what species the "Hvoues 8 Mun of the Greeks’ is 
to be referred, must ever remain uncertain: even at this time the 
different species of this extensive family are not satisfactorily as- 
certained; but, in a medical sense, this is of little importance, as 
the virtues of all reside in the aromatic flavour, which 4 is common 
to the whole genus. 
** On drying, the leaves lose about thee fourths of their weight 
without suffering much loss of their smell or taste; nor is the smell 
soon dissipated by moderate warmth, or impaired on keeping. 
Cold water, by maceration for six or eight hours on the dry herb, 
and warm water in a shorter time, become richly impregnated with 
its flavour.—By distillation, a pound and a half of the dry leaves 
communicate a strong impregnation to a gallon of water: the 
* See Withering, 1. c. 
2 Mint has not escaped the notice of the Latin poets: 
An tibi quondam 
Feemineos artus in olentes vertere menthas 
Persephone, licuit? Ovip. Mer. L. x. v. 728 
By Martial it is called  ructatrix Mentha.” Epigr. L. 10. 48. 
el 
