Page:Wayside and Woodland Blossoms.djvu/128

59 viridis), the cultivated herb of kitchen gardens. Spear-mint is held to be only a naturalized, not a native species, unless it be in one corner of our country—West Yorks. We have, however, seven species that may be set down as natives, but they are a rather troublesome group for the botanical student; there are so many varieties, hybrids, and sub-species, which tend to connect the species and make it difficult to determine the identity of some specimens. With the exception of the Cornmint (M. arvensis), they are all inhabitants of wet and marshy wastes, flowering in August and September. They are Labiate plants, and therefore the reader will know what type of flower to expect (see pages and  ante). These flowers are individually small, but rendered more conspicuous by being borne in dense whorls, the whorls being often so many and so close together as to form long spikes of bloom. They are all perennial herbs, with square stems and rootstocks, the latter creeping on or just below the surface of the ground, and giving off runners freely. Mentha rotundifolia has broadly ovate, wrinkled, stalkless leaves, the edges indented with rounded teeth, and woolly on the underside. Flower-spikes dense, though with slight intervals between the whorls. The colour of the flowers varies from pink to white. The other species are: