Mentha.] labiate. 373 



? 6. M. sativa, L. Marsh Whorled Mint. " Leaves stalked 

 elliptical ovate or ovato-lanceolate serrate, upper ones similar but 

 smaller, all longer than the distant dense whorls, calyx with lan- 

 ceolate acuminate teeth." — Br. Fl. p. 309. Sole, Menth. Brit. p. 

 47, t. 21 ? M. arvensis »., Benth. Lab. p. 179. M. gentilis, L. : 

 height. Fl. Shro^ps. p. 275. 



In wet hedges and thickets, by river-sides, ditchbanks and other watery places ; 

 very rave, and scarcely wild. FL. August, September. 2/1. 



W. Med. — On a hedgebank by the roadside between Calbourne and Brixton, 

 probably not really indigenous, 1841. 



Root creeping. Stem erect, leafy, from 18 inches to 2 feet in height, solid, 

 quadrangular, furrowed and purple, with many opposite and (in my specimens) 

 short, Bexuose, somewhat erect branches, clothed like the stem itself with not very 

 numerous, partly spreading, partly recurved, stiffish hairs. Leaves opposite, on 

 very short, broad, channelled and slightly winged petioles, ovate or ovato-elliptical, 

 coarsely, unequally and sharply serrate, strongly depresso-veiiose, those ou the 

 stem (at least the lowermost) scarcely pointed, those of the branches more acute, 

 palish green, most so beneath, where they are sprinkled with numerous round 

 brownish dots, depressed in the centre and interspersed with detached, yellow, 

 resinous particles: the upper surface of the leaves is beset with short, scattered, 

 erect hairs, which are longer and more copious ou the under side, particularly 

 along the very prominent ribs. Flowers in my specimens rather large, pale bluish 

 purple with some nearly white ones interspersed, in small, dense, axillary, distant 

 and shortly stalked whorls. Brads linear or partly subulate, the two undermost 

 opposite, lanceolato-acuminate, larger than the rest, all hairy beneath and at the 

 edges, flat and glabrous. Calyx campanulate, strongly ribbed, sprinkled with 

 yellow resinous particles, the ribs and margins of the erect triangular-lanceolate 

 teeth beset with stiff, whitish, suberect hairs, which in my examples extend par- 

 tially down to the base of the calyx, and are even seen here and there on the 

 round, shining and otherwise glabrous pedicels, which are about equal in length 

 to the tube of the calyx. Corolla a little hairy on the back of the upper lip, 

 otherwise glabrous, the tuhe about as long as the calyx. Stamens included or 

 partly much exserted, as in other species of Mint; anthers yellowish, orbicular, 

 flattened. 



The herb possesses the agreeable odour of Spear Mint, without much pungency, 

 and like it is cultivated in gardens. 



Amidst the utter confusion which still prevails in our knowledge of this most 

 perplexing genus, I cannot quote any figure nor even description with certainty, 

 and indeed is it scarcely possible to do so where the differences that mark the spe- 

 cies or varieties shade off so imjierceptibly as to defy the limited powers of lan- 

 guage to define such nice and evanescent peculiarities. Plates 18 and 21 of Sole, 

 — his M. rubra and sativa, particularly the latter, — come nearest to our plant, but 

 the leaves in each are more acute, yet I have but little doubt of their being both 

 varieties of the same plant, of which our own is another, with more obtuse leaves 

 than is perhaps usual. Sole's short and imperfect characters do not assist much, 

 nor are the more detailed descriptions that follow very discriminative. The 

 figures in E. B., t. 2118 and 1 413, are still more unsatisfactory ; the latter, though 

 bad, has much mure resemblance to our plant than the former, which is not like 

 any mint I ever met with, and certainly most unlike Sole's pi. 18, M. rubra, to 

 which it is referred. Judging from the descriptions, which coincide almost 

 exactly, our Isle-of-Wight plant is the M. gentilis of Smith, and of Leighton's Fl. 

 of Shropshire. 



7. M. arvensis, L. Corn Mint. " Leaves stalked ovate or 

 elliptical sometimes cordate at the base serrate, upper ones simi- 

 lar and equally large, all longer than the distant whorls, calyx 



