MENTHA PIPERITA. PEPPER MINT. 
Class XIY. DIDYNAMIA. Order I. G Y M N O S PE R M I A. 
Natural Order, LABIATE. THE MINT TRIBE. 
Fig. (e) represents the calyx and pistil; (/) the corolla, with the stamens. 
Several species of Mint are cultivated for medicinal and culinary uses. Of these the most important are 
Pepper Mint, Mentha piperita: Spearmint, M. viridis ; and Penny-royal, M . Pulegium. They are all of 
them indigenous to Britain, and hardy perennials ; well worthy the attention of those who love to look into 
flowery hedges, 
“ Or into the meadows where 
Mints perfume the gentle aire, 
And where Flora spreads her treasure.” 
Pepper Mint grows wild in some parts of Britain, in watery places, and on the banks of streams, 
flowering in August and September ; but it is not a common native plant. There are three varieties of this 
species ; but the variety a , of Smithes “ English Flora,” is the one generally employed in medicine. The 
specimen figured was obtained from Mitcham in Surrey, where considerably more than one hundred acres 
of this herb are cultivated for the supply of the London market. 
From a creeping rhizoma arises a stalk that is nearly erect, quadrangular, branched, and generally of a 
purplish colour, with short recurved hairs, to the height of two or three feet. The leaves stand opposite, 
on short footstalks, are of a dark green colour, ovate, serrated, acute, varying in breadth, smooth and shining 
above, and paler, with white and purple veins beneath ; the leaves are never downy, but the middle rib, on the 
under side, is beset with short hairs. The spike-like thyrsus of flowers is solitary, bluntish, terminal, about 
the length of the leaves, interrupted and leafy below, with the lowest axillary cymes more distant, and some- 
times spiked. The bracteas are lanceolate and fringed. The flower-stalks are either perfectly smooth, or 
very slightly hairy above. The calyx is slender, furrowed, covered with pellucid dots ; the base quite smooth, 
and five-cleft, with the teeth dark purple and fringed. The corolla is funnel-shaped, longer than the calyx, 
and of a purplish colour. The filaments are awl-shaped, straight, and shorter than the limb. The germen 
is four-lobed, superior, with a slender style, longer than the corolla, and terminated with a bifid stigma. 
In external appearance. Pepper Mint corresponds with Mentha viridis, for which it may easily be mis- 
taken ; but in that the leaves are sessile, and narrower in proportion to their length ; the thyrsi are longer, 
and composed of more cymes. “ England,” says Sir J. E. Smith, “ has already been known as the country 
of the true M. piperita. What supplies its place in the north of Europe, is merely a variety of M. hirsuta, 
having a similar odour ; and this is named piperita in the Linnsean herbarium.” Two varieties, a narrow- 
leaved and a broad-leaved, are cultivated in gardens, and some variegated kinds are considered as ornamental 
plants, particularly a reddish variety called Orange Mint. 
MENTHA PULEGIUM. — PEN NY- ROYAL. 
Fig. (c) represents a perfect flower with the calyx removed ; (d) the calyx and pistil. 
Penny-royal * is a plant pretty generally known, being found every where on heaths in moist places, and 
flowering in September. Our figure was taken from a specimen growing by the side of a pond in Wim- 
bledon Common ; and on the same spot we also found Acorus Calamus and Anthemis nobilis. 
The root of this plant is creeping. The stems are bluntly quadrangular, procumbent, downy at the 
upper part, and sending up erect, flowering ones to the height of eight or nine inches. The leaves are 
scarcely an inch in length, petiolated, ovate, obtuse, unequally serrated, with numerous pellucid dots, and 
slightly hairy underneath. The axillary cymes, which are supported on short, purplish stalks, are numerous, 
many-flowered, sessile, and of a pale lilac colour. The calyx is five-cleft, tubular, slender, nearly cylindrical, 
strongly furrowed, and clothed with short downy hairs ; five-cleft, with the teeth unequal, pointed, and 
fringed. The corolla is longer than the calyx, externally hairy, of a light purple, and sometimes of a white 
colour The stamens are erect, and longer than the corolla ; the germen is four-cleft, with a slender style, 
furnished with a bifid stigma. 
In its wild state, the plant trails upon the ground, and strikes root at the joints ; but the markets are 
usually supplied with a garden variety, which is larger than the other, and grows nearly upright. 
Many virtues are ascribed to mint by the ancients, but we are ignorant of the species to which they refer. 
* It may not be improper here to mention, that the American plant, known by the name of Penny-royal, is entirely different from 
the Penny-royal of Britain, and belongs to a different genus, Hedeoma— See Barton’s Vegetable Materiae Medica of the United States, 
v. ii. p. 168. 
