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Horsemint and genus Monarda
May. 20th, 2011 11:58 amWhen I was younger I was familiar with all the wildflowers we had around about, but as I had been taught, I thought of most of them as weeds. Unless it looked like the simple daisy and tulip shapes we drew next to our square-and-triangle houses in kindergarten artwork, I didn't really think of it as a flower.
Now, though, I believe that "weed" is just a word we use for any plant that's growing where we don't want it to grow. If it's wanted and appreciated, it's not a weed. This has opened up my eyes to a lot of complex, unusual flowers. One is horsemint. The flowers have these puffy balls out of which grow long, tubular flowers with elaborate lower petals -- almost like a cluster of tiny birds of paradise. The variety that blooms in May is Monarda russeliana, which has white petals with burgundy-red spots. I love spots. :) When the petals fall off, there are still light purple bracts below that are pretty too.
( Spent flowers )
Regarding the name... well. There's a plant native to Europe, Mentha logifolia, that goes by the common name "horsemint." There are a number of New World plants that have the same common names as some old world plants even though they are unrelated (Venus' looking glass is one) and I suspect it was just a case of immigrants using names they already knew to identify new plants.
The plant I know as horsemint is also a member of the Mint family (Labiacae or Lamiaceae) along with the "true" mints (Mentha genus), sages (Salvia genus) and many others, but this plant is in the Monarda genus. And such an interesting genus it is! The various species go by names like bee balm, oswego tea, and wild bergamot in addition to horsemint, and from what I can tell, these names aren't always consistent. Looking around at Monarda russeliana, I've also found it called "redpurple beebalm," "white bergamot" and "red spotted horsemint." It depends on region and personal identification. In the Monarda genus, the "bergamot" isn't related to the kind that goes in Earl Grey tea, and the "mint" isn't mint, but all of the Monarda species have oil in their leaves that's kind of spicy or citrusy, which I imagine accounts for the names invoking fragrant oils. Monarda leaves have been used by native people for antiseptic purposes, and apparently the oil is the same as the active ingredient in most of the mouthwashes we use these days.
I don't know if I believe this, and I can't find a reliable source for it, but there is a story floating around the internet that in Texas in 2010, some local police were tipped off that there was a lot of cannabis growing in a local park, so they pulled it all up and only upon chemical testing did they realize that it was actually horsemint.
Now, though, I believe that "weed" is just a word we use for any plant that's growing where we don't want it to grow. If it's wanted and appreciated, it's not a weed. This has opened up my eyes to a lot of complex, unusual flowers. One is horsemint. The flowers have these puffy balls out of which grow long, tubular flowers with elaborate lower petals -- almost like a cluster of tiny birds of paradise. The variety that blooms in May is Monarda russeliana, which has white petals with burgundy-red spots. I love spots. :) When the petals fall off, there are still light purple bracts below that are pretty too.
( Spent flowers )
Regarding the name... well. There's a plant native to Europe, Mentha logifolia, that goes by the common name "horsemint." There are a number of New World plants that have the same common names as some old world plants even though they are unrelated (Venus' looking glass is one) and I suspect it was just a case of immigrants using names they already knew to identify new plants.
The plant I know as horsemint is also a member of the Mint family (Labiacae or Lamiaceae) along with the "true" mints (Mentha genus), sages (Salvia genus) and many others, but this plant is in the Monarda genus. And such an interesting genus it is! The various species go by names like bee balm, oswego tea, and wild bergamot in addition to horsemint, and from what I can tell, these names aren't always consistent. Looking around at Monarda russeliana, I've also found it called "redpurple beebalm," "white bergamot" and "red spotted horsemint." It depends on region and personal identification. In the Monarda genus, the "bergamot" isn't related to the kind that goes in Earl Grey tea, and the "mint" isn't mint, but all of the Monarda species have oil in their leaves that's kind of spicy or citrusy, which I imagine accounts for the names invoking fragrant oils. Monarda leaves have been used by native people for antiseptic purposes, and apparently the oil is the same as the active ingredient in most of the mouthwashes we use these days.
I don't know if I believe this, and I can't find a reliable source for it, but there is a story floating around the internet that in Texas in 2010, some local police were tipped off that there was a lot of cannabis growing in a local park, so they pulled it all up and only upon chemical testing did they realize that it was actually horsemint.