ROUND-HEADED MINTS. 



Pt. IX. 



9. BERGAMOT MINT. 



THE ftalk of this Mint is quadrangular, almoft fmooth, of a mahogany 

 colour, much branched, and grows about two feet high, terminating in a 

 large round head of flowers, and two collateral heads at the joint below it; 

 the collateral branches alfo all terminate in a head of flowers, which are of 

 a light red colour; the leaves ftand on fhort footftalks, they are concave, 

 ovate, and ferrated; the nerves and very often the under fides of the leaves 

 are red ; the ftamens are fhorter than the bloffoms : the whole plant has 

 a moft agreeable fmell of Bergamot. The heads are not ftriaiy globular, 

 but are a little deprefled at the tops: this pint correfponds in every thing 

 to Linnasus's aquatica, but in the ftamens being fhorter than the bloffom. 

 The late Mrs. Walmfley, of Bath, when I (hewed her this Mint as a curi- 

 ofity in the year 1772, informed me that it was very common by river- 

 fides and brooks in Chefhire, particularly in the neighbourhood of her 

 father's houfe, (Afton-honfc) and that it was well known there by the 

 name of Water-Mint. I found my plant in a fmall brook or ditch near 

 Capel-Caree, between Llandrooft and Llanberrys, North- Wales. 



Morrifon has thrown great light on this plant by giving us two figures 

 of it, one fmooth like his and mine, and one hairy like Ray's: it is well 

 known that the difference of foil conflitutes this difference. Both Morri- 

 fon and Ray's figures exhibit the ftamens longer than the bloffoms ; but 

 as neither of them mention any thing of this, I am inclined to think it 

 is owing to an error of the artift, who has drawn ftamens for ftyles, as in 

 Ray's pepper-mint; and this appears (till more likely to be the cafe, as in 

 looking wiftly into them we find but one ftamen in each bloffom, which 

 ought to contain four, with a fingle bifid ftyle in the midft of them, of 

 which there is no appearance. 



