MINT FAMILY. Labiates. 



MINT FAMILY. Labiatce. 



A large family of aromatic herbs, the foliage of which 

 is covered with tiny glands containing a strong-scented 

 volatile oil of a peppery character ; the different species 

 superficially resemble one another. The flowers are 

 usually small, tubular, with an entire or two-lobed upper 

 lip and a three-lobed lower lip. The stem is general ly 

 square, and the leaves grow opposite each other. The 

 tiny flowers are gathered in more or less conspicuous 

 spikes, or are clustered at the base of the leaves ; they 

 are honey -bearing, and are almost exclusively cross-fer- 

 tilized by honeybees, bumblebees, and the smaller bees. 

 The name from Labice, the lips. 



This is an annual species whose light vio- 

 let, magenta-pink, or rarely white flow- 

 ers are generally in pairs at the terminating 

 branchlets of the somewhat woolly-sticky 

 stiff stem. The leaves are narrowly oblong 

 or lance-shaped, and a trifle sticky, with 

 an aromatic pennyroyallike odor. The 

 flowers are too scattered to form a panicle 

 or cluster, and they are remarkable for the 

 extraordinary length of the violet stamens which ex- 

 tend in a curving line far beyond the five-lobed corolla, 

 or flower-cup hence the name Blue Curls. The Latin 

 name also refers to the hairlike stamens. After the co- 

 rolla fades and falls, the little nutlets within the calyx 

 are in plain view. 6-20 inches high. In dry sandy 

 fields, from Me., south, and west to Pa. and Ky. 



A very similar species with a slender 

 woolly stem, ascending branches, and very 

 narrow linear leaves, stemless and smooth. 

 In sandy fields and dry pine barrens near 

 the coast, from Long Island and Conn., 

 south to La. 



A slender branching annual with lance- 

 shaped, toothless or slightly toothed, 

 conspicuously three-ribbed leaves, and ex- 

 tremely regular-lobed flowers (for one of 

 the family Labiatce), with five nearly 

 equal, obovate, spreading divisions. The 

 333 



Blue Curls or 



Bastard 



Pennyroyal 



Trichostema 



dichotomum 



Pale violet 



or magenta 



July 



September 



Trichostema 

 lineare 

 Pale violet, 

 etc. 

 July-August 



False 

 Pennyroyal 



Isanthus 

 cczruleus 

 Pale violet 

 July 

 September 



