Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Lamiales > Lamiaceae > Mentha > Mentha pulegium

Mentha pulegium (pennyroyal; peppermint)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Mentha pulegium, commonly (European) pennyroyal, also called squaw mint, mosquito plant and pudding grass, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae native to Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. Crushed pennyroyal leaves exhibit a very strong fragrance similar to spearmint. Pennyroyal is a traditional culinary herb, folk remedy, and abortifacient. The essential oil of pennyroyal is used in aromatherapy, and is also high in pulegone, a highly toxic volatile organic compound affecting liver and uterine function.
View Wikipedia Record: Mentha pulegium

Attributes

Allergen Potential [1]  Medium-Low
Edible [2]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [2]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [2]  In large quantities this plant, especially in the form of the extracted essential oil, can cause abortions so it should not be used by pregnant women;
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [2]  Bees
Scent [2]  The whole plant a strong spearmint smell.
Structure [4]  Herb
Usage [2]  An essential oil is obtained from the whole plant, used in soap making; A yield of 14kg of oil per hectare is considered good; The plant has a low spreading habit and can be used as a ground cover, though it is somewhat sparse in the winter and can be invaded by the more aggressive weeds; The growing or dried plant repels fleas, ants, moths, mice etc; Rats and mice intensely dislike the smell of mint. The plant was therefore used in homes as a strewing herb and has also been spread in granaries to keep the rodents off the grain; A strong infusion applied to the face will keep gnats away in the summer; The aromatic leaves are used as an ingredient of pot-pourri;
Height [2]  16 inches (0.4 m)
Width [2]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Light Preference [3]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [3]  Moderate Acid
Soil Fertility [3]  Rich
Soil Moisture [3]  Damp
View Plants For A Future Record : Mentha pulegium

Ecoregions

Protected Areas

Predators

Anartia jatrophae (white peacock)[5]
Heterogaster canariensis[6]
Largus californicus[5]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Derived from Allergy-Free Gardening OPALS™, Thomas Leo Ogren (2000)
♦ 2Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 3ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 4Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 5Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
Ecoregions provided by World Wide Fund For Nature (WWF). WildFinder: Online database of species distributions, ver. 01.06 Wildfinder Database
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0