GIANT HYSSOP 



Agastache Foeniculum (Pursh) Kuntze 

 MINT FAMILY 



In midsummer the breath of the prairie is fragrant with the 

 spicy odors of the mints. In midwinter, if one shake up the hay 

 in the farmer's mow, the air at once becomes redolent with the 

 same perfumes which recall to memory the warmth and color 

 of the sunlit plains. 



Certain members of the family are low-set plants with small 

 flowers clustered in the axils of the leaves; others, like the Wild 

 Bergamot described on a previous page, are taller with showy 

 terminal flower-heads; still others are coarse and weedy. 



This Giant Hyssop, a tall and handsome mint, may frequently 

 be seen on the plains, along fence rows, and among bushes from 

 Manitoba to Alberta. Its smooth, sharply angled stems grow 

 from two to four feet high. Its anise-scented leaves are of marked 

 beauty, being firm in texture, triangular-ovate in outline, sharply 

 and evenly toothed, dark green and strongly veined above, and 

 a clean white beneath. The flowers, produced over a long season, 

 are borne in terminal spikes two to five inches in length. Fre- 

 quently these spikes are compact throughout, but the larger 

 ones may be interrupted by pairs of small leaves and short lengths 

 of stem. The bright blue corollas, about two-fifths of an inch 

 long, project almost at right angles to the stem. The calyces 

 are also tinted blue, and after the corollas wither and fall off this 

 blue shade deepens, leaving the tall, leafy wands still conspicuous 

 and decorative through the rest of the Summer. 



It is interesting to notice that, whereas, in a simple flowi 

 spike the blossoms open in a regular, easily recognized ordc 

 here, in the spike of the Giant Hyssop, they seem to appe* 

 at random up and down its length. Yet for each plant there is 

 a master design, and it cannot be doubted that these flowers also 

 open in a definite, predetermined order. But in these dense 

 spikes the scheme is not readily apparent, for we have here a 

 double geometrical design, first in the arrangement of clusl 

 on the stem, and second in the arrangement of flowers in th< 

 cluster. 



106 



