About
Sometimes called Virginia Mountain Mint, this name is misleading because this plant is not found in high elevations. Mountain Mint can be found growing in moist meadows, and swamps, along streams, and on the shoreline of ponds and lakes. This is a perennial herbaceous plant that can grow up to three feet tall and has a bushy appearance because it has so many branches. The leaves grow to two and a half inches and are long and narrowly lanced. When the leaves are crushed they give off a strong minty smell.
Each umbel-like cluster can consist of up to 50 flowers at the tip of the stem, measuring 3/4 of an inch across. Not all the flowers bloom at one time, and they are white with tiny purple spots. The blooming period occurs during the middle of summer and lasts about a month. Each small flower produces four tiny, finely pitted, dull black seeds. The root system produces rhizomes, which spread a short distance from the mother plant, producing a colony of mountain mint plants.
Medicinal
The Chippewa and Lakota make a compound of the leaves and took this mixture to help them with coughs, chills, and fever. The florets of this plant are used as a stimulant and made into a tonic. Another use of the florets is to crush them and then apply the crushed leaves into the nostrils of a dying patient in order to rally them. The dry leaves are also used to make tea. This tea is drunk before the beginning of the hunt as a good luck potion.
Did You Know
Catnip and lavender are in the same family as Mountain Mint.
The flowers open at different times, beginning at the outer edges of the cluster.
Another name for this plant is American Mountain Mint
The Genus name comes from the Greek pyknos meaning dense and anthos meaning flower.
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