362 



LABI AT AE (MINT FAMILY) 



Stems one to three feet tall, often tinged with reddish purple, 

 smooth, square, erect and branching. Leaves dark green, lance- 

 shaped, about half as wide as long, sharply toothed, smooth on 

 both sides except that the veins beneath are slightly hairy, pointed 

 at tip, rounded or narrowed at base to a short petiole. Flowers in 

 terminal spikes, obtuse at tip, densely whorled or sometimes in- 

 terrupted, purple, rather showy; calyx smooth at base but with 

 nearly equal hairy teeth ; corolla with upper lip entire and lower 

 lip three-lobed ; the four stamens, equal, erect and included ; 

 style two-cleft at summit. Nutlets four in each calyx, ovoid and 

 smooth. (Fig. 252.) 



Means of control 



A peppermint patch is about as difficult to clean out as is one 

 of Quack Grass, for the rootstocks must all be removed from the 

 soil or starved to death. In the one case, this means very diligent 

 use of grubbing hoe and rake; in the other, such close and fre- 

 quent cutting as to allow no green leaves to 

 appear throughout the growing season. 



SPEARMINT 

 Mentha spicata, L. 



Other English names: Lamb Mint, Mackerel 

 Mint, Garden Mint, Our Lady's Mint, Sage 

 of Bethlehem. 



Introduced. Perennial. Propagates by seeds 

 and by stolons. 



Time of bloom : June to September. 



Seed-time: August to November. 



Range: Nova Scotia to Ontario and Minne- 

 sota, southward to Florida and Kansas. 



Habitat : Moist ground ; fields and waste places. 



Like the preceding species this mint is cul- 

 tivated for the distillation of its oil, which has 

 a milder flavor and action than that of Pepper- 

 mint. Stems ten to twenty inches high, nearlv 

 FIG. 253. Spear- ., t t- T 



mint (Mentha spi- smooth, erect, square, branching. Leaves lance- 



cato). x \. shaped, unequally toothed, the surface some- 



