Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Lamiales > Lamiaceae > Nepeta > Nepeta cataria

Nepeta cataria (field balm; catwort; catmint; catnip)

Synonyms:

Wikipedia Abstract

Nepeta cataria, commonly known as catnip, catswort, or catmint, is a species of the genus Nepeta in the family Lamiaceae, native to southern and eastern Europe, the Middle East, central Asia, and parts of China. It is also widely naturalized in northern Europe, New Zealand, and North America. The common name catmint can also refer to the genus as a whole. The names catnip and catmint are derived from the intense attraction most cats have towards them.
View Wikipedia Record: Nepeta cataria

Infraspecies

Nepeta cataria cataria
Nepeta cataria verticillata

Attributes

Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Lifespan [1]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Bees
Scent [1]  The leaves are strongly aromatic with a resinous quality; There are some named varieties with different scents.
Structure [3]  Herb
Usage [1]  The plant is said to deter insects such as ants and flea beetles; (The idea behind it being a rat repellent is probably based on the plants attraction to cats, see notes above.) A strong infusion can be used to repel fleas from carpets or the fur of animals; An extract from the leaves (called nepetalactone) has herbicidal and insect repellent properties; The freshly harvested flowering tops contain 0.3 - 1% essential oil by distillation; It is mainly used for medicinal purposes; The dried leaves retain their fragrance and can be used in pot-pourri;
Height [1]  39 inches (1 m)
Width [1]  24 inches (0.6 m)
Light Preference [2]  Mostly Sunny
Soil Acidity [2]  Neutral
Soil Fertility [2]  Intermediate
Soil Moisture [2]  Mostly Dry
View Plants For A Future Record : Nepeta cataria

Protected Areas

Predators

Providers

Consumers

Parasitized by 
Neoerysiphe galeopsidis[4]

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2ECOFACT 2a Technical Annex - Ellenberg’s indicator values for British Plants, M O Hill, J O Mountford, D B Roy & R G H Bunce (1999)
♦ 3Kattge, J. et al. (2011b) TRY - a global database of plant traits Global Change Biology 17:2905-2935
♦ 4Jorrit 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.
♦ 5Anthophora abrupta Say (Insecta: Hymenoptera: Apidae), Jason R. Graham, Jamie Ellis, Glenn Hall, Catherine Zettel Nalen, University of Florida, December 2011
♦ 6Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 7New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 8Robertson, C. Flowers and insects lists of visitors of four hundred and fifty three flowers. 1929. The Science Press Printing Company Lancaster, PA.
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