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A NEW BRITISH CALAMINTHA. 
By H. W. Pugsley, B.A., F.L.S. 
The nomenclature of the plants that we regard as the true 
Calamints has become so entangled in this country that it seems 
necessary to unravel it in order to render intelligible any description 
of a new form. Two of our British species were known to Linnaeus, 
who placed them in the genus Melissa in Spec. Plant. 593 (1753), 
as M. Calamintha and M. JSepeta. In 1778 the genus Calamintha 
was founded by Lamarck (El. France, ii. 393), and the two 
Linnean species became C. montana and C. parviflora, the Linnean 
non-British species C. grandijlora being placed under the former 
as a variety /3. Lamarck’s genus was subsequently adopted by 
Moench and most other writers until Scheele (in Flora , xxvi. 577 
(1843)) proposed to sink it in iSatiireia L., and transferred the two 
British species to S. Calamintha and S. Nepeta . This new arrange¬ 
ment, however, was not followed, and the generic name Calamintha 
remained in general use. In 1891 a third system was inaugurated by 
0. Kuntze (Rev. Gen. 515), who absorbed Calamintha in Clino- 
podium L.; and in 1895 Briquet (Labiees Alp. Marit. iii. 433) 
revived Scheele’s arrangement. Both of these latter systems have 
found followers among recent authors. 
In British botany the genus Calamintha has usually been adopted 
till very lately, and I am not convinced that sufficient grounds exist 
for merging it in Satureia , which differs in possessing almost uni¬ 
formly a regularly 5-toothed instead of bilabiate calyx—an important 
difference in Labiatce —and comprises plants very unlike the Calamints 
in general aspect, or yet in Clinopodium , which also possesses an 
essentially different calyx. The genus Calamintha will therefore be 
maintained in this paper. 
The first species, Melissa Calamintha L., which by the general 
consent of continental authors represents, at least mainly, the Isle of 
Wight plant described as Calamintha sylvatica by Bromfield, when 
transferred to Calamintha cannot retain its specific epithet, as this 
simply repeats the generic name. The next name, C. montana Lamk. 
(excl. var. /3), is also inadmissible, for it contains as a variety a 
Linnean species (J/. grandijlora) which should have been made the 
specific type. C. officinalis Moench, Meth. 409 (1794), is commonly 
regarded by Continental authors as valid for C. sylvatica , but while 
the brief description points to this plant, the citations clearly refer in 
part to the common British Calamint, and the name was interpreted 
in this latter sense by Host and by Bentham. Host’s C. menthce- 
folia (FI. Austr. ii. 129 (1831)) appears also to refer to C. sylvatica , 
but was understood otherwise by Grenier and Godron, by Reichenbach, 
and by Syme. With these conflicting views it seems best, until 
further evidence is adduced, to treat both C. officinalis and C. men - 
thcefolia as nomina confusa, and to adopt Bromfield’s C. sylvatica 
(Engl. Bot. Suppl. 2897 (1845)), which is free from all ambiguity. 
The Melissa Calamintha of Linnaeus’s Herbarium is neither of our 
Journal of Botany.—Vol. 61. [July. 1923.] 
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