Peppermint

Overview

Peppermint is a sterile hybrid — born of watermint and spearmint, it cannot set seed, and so it persists only by will and root, spreading wherever it is permitted to go. Its menthol is a cold that burns, a contradiction the plant wears without apology. For centuries it has been pressed into service as a digestive, a headache remedy, a breath-sweetener, a fly deterrent — a plant of small but reliable mercies. It is common enough to be overlooked, and old enough to deserve more than that.

Botanical Notes

Mentha × piperita grows as a vigorous, rhizomatous perennial herb, typically reaching 30 to 90 centimetres in height, with square stems characteristic of the Lamiaceae family. Leaves are ovate to lanceolate, sharply toothed, dark green above and often flushed with purple along the veins, releasing their sharp menthol scent at the slightest touch. Small, pale lilac to purple flowers are borne in whorled spikes from mid to late summer, though as a hybrid the plant rarely produces viable seed. It spreads readily by underground stolons and thrives in moist, fertile soils across temperate regions of Europe and North America, naturalising with a persistence that borders on ambition.

Lore & History

The ancient Greeks wove peppermint into garlands for the dead and used it to scent their funeral rites, believing it carried the living across into memory. Pliny the Elder, writing in the first century, noted that the Romans crowned themselves with it at feasts and flavoured their sauces and wines accordingly. In medieval European herb gardens — the physic plots of monasteries — it was cultivated under the authority of Charlemagne's Capitulare de Villis, the ninth-century decree that mandated its presence in every imperial estate. In folk traditions across Britain and Appalachia alike, peppermint tea was a household remedy passed down in handwritten receipt books, the plant bridging the distance between kitchen and apothecary.

Warnings