Water mint (Mentha aquatica)

Synonyms: Mentha citrata, Mentha piperita ssp. citrata, Mentha x piperita var. citrata

Description: Historically used for medicinal and culinary purposes.

Habit: Herbaceous rhizomatous perennial plant growing up to 90 cm tall.

Leaves: Ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 2-6 cm long and 1-4 cm wide, green sometimes purpleish in color, opposite, toothed and can be hairy or hairless.

Stems: Square, green or purple in color and can be variably hairy to almost hairless.

Flowers: Tiny, densely crowded, purple or pink in color, tubular.

Habitat: Native to Eurasia, northwest Africa and southwest Asia. Can be found in shallow margins and channels of streams, rivers, pools, dykes, ditches, canals, wet meadows, marshes and fens.

Reproduction: Vegetatively by rhizomes.

Monitoring and rapid response: Biological control from Chrysolina herbacea, small populations can be controlled by handpulling. Can be effectively controlled using any of several readily available general use herbicides such as glyphosate.

Credits: The information provided in this factsheet was gathered from the Great Lakes Aquatic Nonindigenous Species Information System (GLANSIS).

Individual species images that appear with a number in a black box are courtesy of the Bugwood.org network (http://www.invasive.org). Individual photo author credits may not be included due to the small display size of the images and subsequent difficulty of reading the provided text. All other images appear courtesy of Google (http://images.google.com).

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