In general habit like the two preceding plants, the FALSEPENNYROYAL (Isanthus brachiatus) nevertheless prefers that its sandy home should be near streams.From Quebec to Georgia, westward to Minnesota and Texas, it blooms in midsummer, lifting its small, tubular, pale blue flowers from the axils of pointed, opposite leaves.An unusual characteristic in one of the mint tribe is that the five sharp lobes of its bell-shaped calyx, and the five rounded, spreading lobes of the corolla, are of equal length, hence its Greek name signifying an equal flower.
WILD or CREEPING THYME
(Thymus Serpyllum) Mint family Flowers - Very small purple or pink purple, fragrant, clustered at ends of branches or in leaf axils.Hairy calyx and corolla 2-lipped, the latter with lower lip 3-cleft; stamens 4; style 2-cleft.Leaves: Oblong, opposite, aromatic.Stem: 4 to 12 in.
long) creeping, woody, branched, forming dense cushions.
Preferred Habitat - Roadsides, dry banks, and waste places.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Naturalized from Europe.Nova Scotia to Middle States.
"I know a bank where the wild thyme blows, Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows;Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine, With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine."- A Midsummer Night's Dream.
According to Danish tradition, anyone waiting by an elder-bush on Midsummer Night at twelve o'clock will see the king of fairyland and all his retinue pass by and disport themselves in favorite haunts, among others the mounds of fragrant wild thyme.How well Shakespeare knew his folklore!
Thyme is said to have been one of the three plants which made the Virgin Mary's bed.Indeed, the European peasants have as many myths as there are quotations from the poets about this classic plant.Its very name denotes that it was used as an incense in Greek temples.No doubt it was the Common Thyme (T.vulgaris), an erect, tall plant cultivated in gardens here as a savory, that Horace says the Romans used so extensively for bee culture.
Dense cushions of creeping thyme usually contain two forms of blossoms on separate plants - hermaphrodite (male and female which are much the commoner; and pistillate, or only female, flowers, in which the stamens develop no pollen.The latter are more fertile; none can fertilize itself.But blossoms so rich in nectar naturally attract quantities of insects - bees and butterflies chiefly.A newly opened hermaphrodite flower, male on the first day, dusts its visitors as they pass the ripe stamens.
This pollen they carry to a flower two days old, which, having reached the female stage, receives it on the mature two-cleft stigma, now erect and tall, whereas the stamens are past maturity.
GARDEN, SPEAR, or MACKEREL MINT
(Mentha spicata; M.viridis of Gray) Mint family Flowers - Small, pale bluish, or pinkish purple, in whorls, forming terminal, interrupted, narrow spikes, 2 to 4 in.long in fruit, the central one surpassing lateral ones.Calyx bell-shaped, toothed; corolla tubular, 4-cleft.Stamens 4; style 2-cleft.Stem: Smooth, 1 to 1 1/2 ft.high, branched.Leaves:
Opposite, narrowly oblong, acute, saw-edged, aromatic.
Preferred Habitat - Moist soil.
Flowering Season - July-September.
Distribution - Eastern half of Canada and United States.Also Europe and Asia.
The poets tell us that Proserpine, Pluto's wife, in a fit of jealousy changed a hated rival into the mint plant, whose name Mentha, in its Latin form, or Minthe, the Greek equivalent, is still that of the metamorphosed beauty, a daughter of Cocytus, who was also Pluto's wife.Proserpine certainly contrived to keep her rival's memory fragrant.But how she must delight in seeing her under the chopping-knife and served up as sauce!
It is a curious fact that among the Labiates, or two-lipped blossoms to which thymes and mints belong, there very frequently occur species bearing flowers that are male on the first day (staminate) and female, or pistillate, on the second day, and also smaller female flowers on distinct plants.Muller believed this plan was devised to attract insects, first by the more showy hermaphrodite flower, that they might carry its pollen to the less conspicuous female flower, which they would naturally visit last; but this interesting theory has yet to be proved.Nineteen species of flies, to which the mints are specially adapted, have been taken in the act of transferring pollen.Ten varieties of the lower hymenoptera (bees, wasps, and others) commonly resort to the fragrant spikes of bloom.
PEPPERMINT (M.piiterita), similar in manner of growth to the preceding, is another importation from Europe now thoroughly at home here in wet soil.The volatile oil obtained by distilling its leaves has long been an important item of trade in Wayne County, New York.One has only to crush the leaves in one's hand to name the flower.
Our native WILD MINT (M.Canadensis), common along brook-sides and in moist soil from New Brunswick to Virginia and far westward, has its whorls of small purplish flowers seated in the leaf axils.Its odor is like pennyroyal.The true PENNYROYAL, not to be confused with our spurious woodland annual, is M.Pulegium, a native of Europe, whence a number of its less valuable relatives, all perennials, have traveled to become naturalized Americans.