Classification
Class
Magnoliopsida Brongn.
Order
Lamiales Bromhead
Family
Labiatae Juss.
 Subordinate Taxa
 Nomenclature
Scientific Name:
Mentha L., Sp. Pl. (1753)
Vernacular Name(s):
Mint
 Description

Usually perennial, rarely annual, herbs with creeping rhizomes or stolons. Lvs simple, aromatic, usually toothed. Verticels usually dense, many-flowered, axillary or in terminal spikes or heads, or as few as 2 fls per verticel, or rarely fls solitary. Fls ☿ or ♀. Bracts leaflike or reduced. Calyx tubular or campanulate, 10–15-nerved, not gibbous at base, generally hairy inside; teeth (4)–5, equal or unequal. Corolla tube < calyx; limb 4-lobed, subequal and scarcely 2-lipped; upper lobe wider and usually emarginate. Stamens almost equal, divergent or lying together beneath upper corolla lip, generally exserted. Style gynobasic, its branches subequal. Nutlets ellipsoid to suborbicular or ovoid, smooth, reticulate or tuberculate.

[From: Webb et al. (1988) Flora of New Zealand. Volume 4.]

 Biostatus
Indigenous (Non-endemic)
Number of species and named hybrids in New Zealand within Mentha L.
CategoryNumber
Indigenous (Endemic)1
Exotic: Fully Naturalised6
Total7
 Bibliography
Linnaeus, C. 1753: Species Plantarum. Impensis Laurentii Salvii, Stockholm.
Mabberley, D.J. 2008: Mabberley's plant book, a portable dictionary of plants, their classification and uses. Edition 3. Cambridge University Press.