ROUND-HEADED MINTS. PL. XI. 



it. GREAT WATER-MINT. 



THIS plant grows from three to five feet in height; its ftalk is fquare, 

 deeply furrowed or fulcated, green, hairy, and terminates in one great 

 oblong head of flowers, below which there are ufually two clufters of 

 flowers, and often a third fet Handing on footftalks, ifluing from the 

 bofoms of the leaves ; they are of a light purple colour, divided into four 

 fegments ; the upper fegment, as in all the mints, being bifid or cleft, but 

 in this moft eminently fo; the ftamens are taller than the bloffom; the 

 leaves ftand on longifh footftalks, and are (as in all its congeners the 

 Sifymbria) round and red underneath until the latter end of May, when 

 they begin to affume their proper fhape, and by degrees become pointed, 

 green, hairy, broad, ovate, elliptical, and oblong; for nature fports much 

 in the habit of this plant according to the variety of foils and fituations; 

 for inftance, in the brooks at Twiford, it is five feet high, with broad 

 elliptical leaves almoft fmooth ; in our ditches and rivulets about Bath it 

 is exceedingly hairy, with ovate leaves, and does not exceed three feet in 

 height ; on our downs again it is procumbent, hoary, and its leaves acu- 

 minated; but its peculiar fmell points out the plant in all its various 

 fituations, which is exaclly that of a ropy chimney in a wet fummer, 

 where wood fires have been kept in winter-time. Tea made of its green 

 leaves is excellent in all nervous and hyfterick cafes, and wherever wood- 

 foot and Ruflia caftor are ufeful, the tea of this plant is not only a fine 

 auxiliary, but in cafes of need an excellent fubftitute: I fpeak this from 

 my own experience. 



Our anceftors, from long before the time of Dr. Turner to the middle 

 of this prefent century, held it defervedly in high eftimation as a nervous 

 medicine, and made great ufe of it. 



Tournefort, in his excellent Inftitutes, obferves, that there is a volatile 

 oily fait in this plant, which is very aromatick, ftomachick, and diuretick, 

 and that the leaves give out their virtue being made into tea. 



It is a very common plant growing in watery places all over England. 

 It flowers in Auguft. 



