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Corn Mint

Corn Mint

Mentha arvensis

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How common: Common

Corn Mint is a low, aromatic perennial mint with a square stem and soft, toothed leaves. It likes damp ground and is often seen by rivers and streams, on wet meadows and field edges, and around gardens and waste places across much of Europe and Asia.

Did you know?

  • Crushing the leaves releases a strong mint scent.
  • Its flowers sit in rings around the stem rather than in a tall spike.

About the species

Identification

Perennial 10–30 cm tall, spreading by creeping underground runners. Stems upright, often unbranched, square and softly hairy. Leaves in pairs with short stalks, oval to egg‑shaped, shallowly toothed and hairy. Small pale purple to blue‑violet flowers grow in tight clusters where the leaves meet the stem, forming several rings up the stem. Later each flower makes four tiny hard seeds. Unlike spearmint or peppermint (with long flower spikes) and water mint (with a dense round head at the tip). Flowers in Finland in July–August.

Plant group

Herbaceous plants

Habitat

shore

Flowering

Jul–Aug

About the habitat

Prefers damp to wet soils: riverbanks and lake shores, stream sides, wet meadows, moist thickets, field margins, ditches and other disturbed ground, including gardens. Common throughout the country except Lapland; rare in southern Lapland, absent in northern Lapland.

Sources

Photo: Alexander Dubynin, CC BY 4.0 https://www.gbif.org/occurrence/6334651385

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki leviäimet, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39520

Text: Pinkka: Verso- ja leviäintunnistus - Kaikki versot, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39520

Text: Pinkka: BIO-503 Suomen kasvisto ja kasvillisuus - Sisävedet: rantaniityt, CC BY 4.0 https://laji.fi/taxon/MX.39520

Text: Wikipedia (Finnish), CC BY-SA 4.0 https://fi.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rantaminttu

See also