Vern.: Field mint; corn mint; "Podina".

I.C. Hedge

Perennial with white creeping rhizomes. Stems erect or ascending, simple or branched above, often purplish below, quadrangular, leafy, with a ± sparse indumentum of eglandular simple, usually retrorse, hairs. Leaves ovate to ovate-elliptic, 2-5 x 1.2-2 cm, serrulate to serrate, acute, cuneate, on both surfaces with ± adpressed eglandular hairs, gland-dotted below; petiole up to 10 mm on lower leaves. Flowers all in axils of middle and upper leaves. Verticillasters all distant, many-flowered, sub-globose, c. 1.5 cm in diameter. Bracts linear-lanceolate, longer than the c. 2-3 mm erect-spreading pedicels. Calyx tubular-campanulate, 2-3 mm, pilose with eglandular hairs, gland-dotted or not; teeth subequal, triangular, c. 0.5 mm, scarcely acuminate; fruiting calyx scarcely enlarging, green, brown or pinkish. Corolla white or pale lilac, 4-4.5 mm; tube rather broad, as long as calyx or slightly exserted; lobes ± erect, broad, rounded. Nutlets 4, globose c. 1 x 1 mm, smooth, rounded.

Fl. Per.: July-September.

Lectotype (selected by Tucker et al., l.c. 236 and fig. 8): in herb Linnaeus (S).

Distribution: throughout Eurasia and into tropical Asia.

Uncommon, or at least seldom-collected, in our area. Easily distinguished by all the verticillasters borne in the axils of the middle/upper leaves and the glabrous-throated calyx.