-Mentha. 813 
equal and spreading or the upper one broader and notched. Stamens, 
4, equal, erect, distant; filaments glabrous; anthers with 2 parallel 
cells. Style shortly bifid. Nuts smooth. — Herbs, usually copiously 
dotted and strongly scented. Flowers small, in false-whorls usually 
dense rarely few flowered, all axillary or, forming terminal spikes, 
with the floral leaves reduced to bracts. bracts within the false- 
whorls minute, or rarely subulate and as long as the calyx. 
A natural genus, not numerous in species, but widely diffused over the 
greater part of the globe without the tropics, and most of the species, from 
the variety of situations to which they will adapt themselves. vary so much 
as to render their exact definition almost hopeless. Many of them also 
propagate so readily from suckers, that individual varieties are perpetuated 
so as to assume the appearance of species. Almost all the species vary in 
the stamens, in some individuals much longer than the corolla, in others 
included within the tube, and often barren; and in several species individuals 
occur with all the leaves crisped and cut, and have been published as 
distinct, under the names of M. crispa or crispata. 
A. Whorls capitate or spiked. Throat of the calyx 
naked, teeth nearly equal L. srytoadt 
B. Whorls remote. Throat of the calyx closed by a 
hatey manag a...” yes ies’ ale > VHS Deel @ Ga 2. M. Pulegium. 
1. M. sylvestris. 
1147. (1.) Mentha sylvestris L. Spec. Plant. I (1753), p. 804. 
— Boiss. Flor. Or. IV, p..543. — Rehbch. Ic. XVUI, tab. 82. — 
Aschers.-Schweinf. I]. Flor. d’Eg., p. 120 no. 818. — Sickenberg. 
Contrib. Flor. d’Eg., p. 267. — Benth. in DC. Prodrom. XII, p. 166. 
— Mentha nigrescens C. Koch in Linnaea XXI, p. 648. — Mentha 
microphylla C. Koch in Linnaea XXI, p. 648. Rootstock, as in 
most Mints, more or less creeping, the stems 30—-70 cm high, erect, 
slightly branched, and, as well as the whole plant, more or less 
hoary with a short close down. Leaves closely sessile, broadly 
lanceolate or narrow-ovate. Flowers small and numerous, in dense 
cylindrical spikes, 2—5 cm long, usually several together, forming 
an oblong terminal panicle. — Flow. December to March. 
N. d. N. o. Often along the irrigations canals and in fields. 
Local name: habaq. 
Throughout Europe and Western Asia, 
var. niliaca Del. Ilustr. Flor. d’Hg.(1813), p. 123. — Aschers.- 
Schweinf. Ill. Flor.d’Eg., p.120 no. 818, — Sickenberg. Contrib. Flor. 
d’Eg., p. 267. — Mentha silvestris B stenostachya Boiss. Flor. Or. IV, 
p- 543. — Mentha tomentosa Urv. Enum., p.67. — Mentha cane- 
scens Sieb. in exsics. — Mentha Sieberi C. Koch in Linnaea XXI, 
52* 
