Am.  Jour,  Pharm. ) 
Jan.,  1883.  J 
The  Japanese  Peppermint  Plant. 
15 
height  of  the  column  of  the  drug  operated  on.  With  ergot^  however^ 
no  precaution  is  necessary,  as  the  alkoloid  is  sought  to  be  discarded, 
and  the  benzin  has  no  action  on  sclerotic  acid  of  scleromucin. 
THE  JAPANESE  PEPPERMI^^IT  PLANT. 
By  E.  M.  Holmes,  F.L.S., 
Curator  of  the  Museum  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain. 
When  examining  some  leaves  of  this  plant,  presented,  together  with 
a  series  of  Japanese  drugs,  to  the  Museum  of  the  Pharmaceutical 
Society,  by  Messrs.  Christy  &  Co.,  in  1879,  I  thought  it  desirable  to 
compare  them  with  those  of  the  plant  which  is  stated  to  yield  the 
Chinese  oil  of  peppermint.  Through  the  courtesy  of  the  keeper  of 
the  Kew  Herbarium,  I  was  permitted  to  taste  a  fragment  of  a  leaf  of 
the  Chinese  plant  and  one  of  Blume's  specimens  of  M.  arvensis,  L., 
var.  Javanica,  the  plant  to  which  this  peppermint  is  referred  in 
^'  Pharmacographia."  To  my  surprise  I  found  that  neither  Blume's 
specimen  nor  any  others  of  the  same  plant  from  various  localities  had 
the  taste  of  peppermint,  but  possessed  a  flavor  similar  to  that  of  the 
garden  mint  (M.  viridis).  Judging  that  the  Japanese  plant  could  not 
belong  to  M.  arvensis,  var.  Javanica,  I  referred  to  the  Jaj^anese  work 
^'  Zo  Mokou  Zoussetz,''  in  which  the  Japanese  peppermint  plant  is 
stated  to  be  Mentha  arvensis,  var.  vulgaris,  Benth.  On  tasting  the 
type  specimen  of  this  plant  at  Kew,  I  found  that  this  also  did  not 
possess  the  taste  of  peppermint,  but  only  that  peculiar  to  European 
specimens  of  M.  arvensis.  I  therefore  wrote  to  China  and  Japan  for 
specimens  of  the  peppermint  plants  of  those  countries.  After  the 
lapse  of  more  than  a  year,  Mr.  C.  Ford,  the  Director  of  the  Botanical 
Gardens  at  Hong  Kong,  was  able  to  procure  a  flowering  specimen  of 
the  Chinese  plant  for  me,  but  no  specimens  of  the  Japanese  plant 
could  be  procured  by  my  correspondents.  Mr.  T.  Christy,  however, 
after  having  first  obtained  seeds  of  the  plant,  attempted  to  grow  them, 
without  success,  but  was  ultimately,  and  after  considerable  difficulty, 
able  to  procure  from  Japan  living  plants  which  flowered  this  year  in 
his  garden  at  Sydenham,  and  a  specimen  of  the  plant  was  exhibited 
for  the  first  time,  I  believe,  in  this  country,  at  the  meeting  of  the 
Pharmaceutical  Conference,  at  Southampton.  On  careful  examination, 
both  the  Chinese  and  Japanese  plants  thus  obtained  were  found  to 
possess  the  botanical  characters  of  Mentha  arvensis,  as  defined  in  De 
