FAMILIES OF FLOWERING PLANTS 231 
group consists of about 160 genera and 3000 species, of very wide dis- 
tribution. They are herbs or shrubs, rarely trees, with highly aromatic 
herbage, and may be recognized usually by the square stems and opposite 
leaves. The calyx is 5-toothed or 5-lobed, mostly nerved ; the corolla 
with a 4-5-lobed limb, but mostly bilabiate. Stamens 4, in two sets, or 
2. Ovary superior, 4-lobed, becoming in fruit 4 one-seeded nutlets, one 
of the important characters of the family. 
The Labiatae include all of our familiar wild and garden mints, such 
as balm, savory, sweet basil, sweet marjory, thyme, hyssop, lavender, 
pennyroyal, bergamot and the like. While the majority of the mints 
used for economic and officinal purposes are of Old World origin, we 
have many genera and species in the United States. There is space 
merely to mention a few of the more important forms. Mentha (See Fig. 
200) is the type of the family, and furnishes us with peppermint (J/. 
Fic. 200. American Wild Mint (Mentha Canadensis). After Britton 
and Brown, Ill. Fl. Northeast U. S. 
piperita) and spearmint (If. spicata). The flowers are in close whorls at 
the axils of the leaves, or are aggregated in a terminal spike. Monarda 
contains some very handsome species, notably M. didyma, the bee balm, 
with scarlet flowers; M. fistulosa, the wild bergamot (See Fig. 201) with 
pink or purple flowers, and I. punctata, the horse balm, with yellowish, 
spotted flowers. The very large genus Salvia, or sage, chiefly tropical in 
distribution, furnishes us with common sage, valuable in seasoning, and 
with the splendid scarlet-flowered species that give color to our flower 
beds in the late summer. Coleus, well-known as an ornamental foliage 
