Peppermint - Mentha aquatica x M. spicata = M. x piperita
Favourite Photos
| image | species | author | location | uploaded | taken | select |
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Peppermint - Mentha aquatica x M. spicata = M. x piperita | dylan | Bristol | 26 Mar 2025, 7:25 p.m. | 21 Mar 2025, 1:12 p.m. | |
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Peppermint - Mentha aquatica x M. spicata = M. x piperita | dylan | Bristol | 26 Mar 2025, 7:25 p.m. | 21 Mar 2025, 1:12 p.m. | |
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Peppermint - Mentha aquatica x M. spicata = M. x piperita | dylan | Bristol | 26 Mar 2025, 7:25 p.m. | 21 Mar 2025, 1:13 p.m. |
Species Description
Widely grown in gardens and sometimes escapes but can also arise in the wild where the two parents come into contact. Habitat includes: wasteland, tips, margins of ponds, lakes and reservoirs, banks of rivers and streams, marshes, flushes, wet pastures, wet woodland etc.
Stace 4:
Mentha x piperita L. (M. x citrata Ehrh., M. dumetorum auct. non Schult; M. aquatica x M. spicata) - Peppermint.
Plant glabrous or hairy, often red-tinged, variously scented, often of peppermint; stems erect, to 90cm; leaves ovate to oblong-lanceolate, cuneate to subcordate at base, with rather sharp but not deep teeth, petiolate; upper whorls in axils of small bracts, congested to form variously rounded, pyramidal or cylindrical head; calyx tubular to bell-shaped, 2.5-4.5mm, with subulate teeth; corolla pinkish-lilac; sterile; 2n=66, 72, 84, 120. Neonative-naturalised; damp ground and waste places, escape or throwout when glabrous, usually spontaneous when hairy; throughout British Isles. Hairy plants were formerly misdetermined as M. aquatica x M. longifolia = M. x dumetorum Schult. Var. citrata (Ehrh.) Briq. (Eau de Cologne Mint) is a distinctive glabrous variant with scent of Eau de Cologne, ovate, subcordate leaves, and a rounded inflorescence; it is often grown and escapes.
Key:
- Stems sometimes procumbent but not rooting along length and mat-forming; flowers usually >6 per node
- Upper whorls contracted into terminal long or rounded head; upper bracts much reduced, unlike leaves
- Leaves distinctly petiolate; flower-head 12-25mm across
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Leaves and calyx-tube glabrous to very sparsely hairy
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Stems sometimes procumbent but not rooting along length and mat-forming; flowers usually >6 per node
- Upper whorls contracted into terminal long or rounded head; upper bracts much reduced, unlike leaves
- Leaves distinctly petiolate; flower-head 12-25mm across
- Leaves and calyx tube hairy
- Leaves lanceolate to narrowly ovate; flowers usually in elongate more or less pyramidal heads; plant normally sterile