MINT FAMILY LABIATAE 
AMERICAN PENNYROYAL 
Hedeoma pulegioides (L.) Pers. 
Though small and inconspicuous, the American Pennyroyal 
is certain to attract our attention by the delightful fragrance of 
its foliage. One familiar with the odor can identify the plant by 
it alone. Oil of Pennyroyal is often used 
by campers to drive away mosquitoes, 
andsit has very powerful medicinal 
properties. 
The plant is an annual that grows in 
dry open places from Quebec to Minne- 
sota and south to Arkansas and Florida, 
and blooms from July to September. The 
slender branches stems grow 6-18 inches 
high and are covered with fine soft hairs. 
The oblong-ovate leaves are petioled, 
somewhat toothed and have a pleasant 
pungent taste. 
A few bluish purple flowers are loosely 
arranged in each axillary cluster. The 
calyx is hairy and slightly 2-lipped, with 
the 3 upper teeth acute and the 2 lower, 
| of equal length, awl shaped and bristling. 
The upper of the 2 corolla lips is flat and 
SayN notched at the end, but the lower is 
spreading and 3-cleft. Stamens are 4 but 
2 are rudimentary, without anthers. 
The ovary is deeply 4-parted and the 
} style is 2-cleft at the top. The fruit con- 
\ sists of 4 smooth ovoid nutlets. 
Likewise strongly aromatic and addicted to crowded colonies 
but even more insignificant singly is the Rough Pennyroyal, Hedeoma 
hispida Pursh, an inhabitant of open dry woodland knolls through- 
out the state. It is low and almost unbranched, with numerous 
narrow, stiff leaves one-half to 1 inch long and entire. Innumerable 
tiny bluish purple flowers are borne in dense axillary clusters. The 
densely hairy bracts and calyx are sharp pointed and almost burlike. 
This is a plant of dry plains from Louisiana and Arkansas north- 
west to Illinois, Colorado and beyond. It flowers from May to 
August. 
And I beheld in a sequestered place 
A slender crocus show its sun-bright face. 
The Crocus Flame—CLINnToNn SCOLLARD 
288 
