THE MINT FAMILY. 



457 



Koellia incana. 



Among many spurges, starry campions, 

 primroses, meadow beauties, Indian pipes 

 and lilies, and all the innumerable, sweet, 

 green things that lead the way to the forest, 

 none in late July is more constantly seen 

 than the hoary mountain-mint. Especially 

 through the high mountains its pungent 

 fragrance and soft pastel tints of colour are 

 found to be subtly attractive. From a dis- 

 tance it appears as though a fairy powder 

 had been sprinkled over it so deep are the 

 pubescence and ashen hue of its leaves. Near 

 seeding time, however, this has passed and 

 a purplish tone pervades the whole plant. 

 By the mountain people the leaves and 

 stem-tops are employed to make into a 

 rather thin oil which is then used in domestic practice to cure, among other 

 things, headaches. 



K. mofitana, thin-leaved mountain-mint, a smoother individual than the 

 preceding species, is not nearly so pretty although a certain similarity can 

 be noticed between them. Its flowers are almost overshadowed by the 

 number and size of its thin, long-pointed leaves, which, however, are quite 

 without the soft-white tomentum so attractive on those of Koellia incana. 

 In fact, with the exception of the ciliate bracts and calyx-segments the 

 plant is throughout nearly glabrous. It inhabits open woods of mostly the 

 mountainous districts of Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia. 



K. Virginia7ia, Virginia mountain-mint, or prairie hyssop, bears white 

 flowers, lightly touched with lavender, which have rigid, lanceolate 

 bracts in their involucres, covered with a white tomentum. The leaves are 

 sessile, or nearly so, linear-lanceolate or lanceolate, smooth, or nearly so, the 

 uppermost, however, covered with a dense, white, woolly tomentum. The 

 plant's range is very extended. 



K. flexiiosa, narrow-leaved mountain-mint, or Virginia thyme, abounds 

 in oak barrens, a most dainty, little member of the family. Its many linear 

 fine leaves give it an open, light look while often the small corollas arc while, 

 flecked with dots of lavender or else pale lavender and also similarly marked 

 with a darker shade. As they grow old they drop off considerably ; so that 

 often the involucres show but few of them. The whole plant emits little 

 fragrance until after it is dried or pressed between the fingers when its 

 pungent odour is strongly exhaled. 



