236 ON THE ENGLISH MINTS. 
quadrangular, thinly coated witli fine matted fleecy hairs. Leaves 
quite sessile, wrinkled, and with the veins deeply channelled, dull 
green, and thinly hairy all over above, paler green, and thinly fleecy- 
hairy all over heneath, with prominent veins, the shape roundish or 
broadly ovate, with a cordate base, the point bluntish, the largest 
measuring about 2 inches long by 1^ broad, the serrations broad, 
blunt, and not deep. luflorescence a panicled arrangement of spikes, 
of which the main one is 2-3 inches long by ^ to f inch broad, either 
quite continuous or slightly interrapted below, the bracts of the lowest 
whorls scarcely leaf-like. Bracteoles ovate or lanceolate-acuminate, 
about equalling the expanded flowers, thickly furnished with strong 
erecto-patent hairs. Calyx sessile or furnished with short hairy 
and glandular pedicels, the tube campanulate, about | line long, coated 
thickly with fine whitish erecto-patent hairs, the teeth lanceolate, 
more thickly hairy, only half as long as the Tube, the corolla small, 
pale lilac, the outside hairy, the inside naked, the nut finely granulated. 
Scent strong and coarse. 
I have seen specimens of this from the Isle of Wight and Devon- 
shire, northward to Edinburghshire, but many of the stations are 
doubtfully spontaneous. It is not a plant of Scandinavia proper, as is 
the case with all our other species,* but it occurs in the Island of 
Bornholra. With us, it seems unusually little liable to vary. The tex- 
ture of the leaves and shape of the bracteoles and calyx teeth best dis- 
tinguish it from the next. The principal variation is in the size, 
rugosity, and serration of the leaves, Wirtgcn's var, clandestina (fasc. 
3. n. 70), a form or state with slender interrupted spikes, large 
bracts, included stamens and very small corolla, I have seen from 
Stadiscombe, Devonshire (J, Banker). 
M, 
M. sylvestris a. Smith. M. sylvestris, Borcau, 1917 ; M. 
idnarh. Eentham. Fries: Wirto'en. fasc. nn. 9. 13. 14, 71, 
72 ; M. villosa prima y Sole, t. 1. 
Stem 2-3 feet high, erect, hardly at all branched below, firm, 
quadrangular, more or less thickly coated with fine white fleecy 
hairs. Leaves pale green, nearly naked, or thinly coated with fine 
white fleecy hairs above, and more or less densely fleece-felted below, 
sessile or very nearly so, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, the largest 
* Jf. piperita is regarded by Fries a^ a doubtful native. 
