248 BLUE TO PURPJ.E 



WILD CANADA MINT 



Mentha Canadensis. Mint Family 



Stems: erect, simple or branclied. Leaves: oblong, acute, sharply ser- 

 rate. Flowers: all in short and dense, sessile, axillary glomerules; calyx 

 oblong-campanulate, pubescent, five-toothed ; corolla irregularly four-cleft. 



The traveller has only to pick a spray of this plant to know 

 its name, Mint, from Minthe, a lovely nymph whom the jeal- 

 ous Proserpine changed into a flower so that she might not 

 win the admiration of Pluto, her lord and master. At least 

 the memory of the ill-fated beauty is kept forever green and 

 fragrant, for the leaves of the Mint contain numerous tiny 

 glands in which is secreted a volatile oil that has an exces- 

 sively strong odour and flavour. 



The fiowers, which are either pinkish-purple or purplish-pink, 

 and very occasionally white, grow in dense little clusters in the 

 axils of the leaves. 



BRUNELLA 



Brunella 7'ulgaris. Mint Family 



Stems : numerous, slender, erect or procumbent, usually simple. Leaves : 

 thin, ovate or oblong, obtuse, entire or crenate. Flowers: in dense, 

 bracted, terminal and axillary spikes ; calyx cylindraceous. with hirsute 

 teeth: corolla-tube inflated, bilabiate, the upper lip entire, arched, the 

 lower lip spreading, three-lobed. 



The dense purple spikes of the Brunella, or Self-heal, are 

 very common beside alpine streams and in the grassy meadows. 

 This plant, which was called Prunella by Linnaeus, is more 

 significantly named Brunella, because it is supposed to con- 

 tain a remedy for die Brdujie, or the quinsy, and hence some 

 ancient German botanist originally called it Brmicllen. 



It is not an attractive flower, for its elongated spikes, cov- 

 ered with dark reddish bracts, have usually only a few scat- 

 tered blossoms on them, and even these are insignificant. 

 The leaves grow in pairs up the stems, and are frequentl}r 

 marked with reddish patches. 



