I asked a French friend if she knew this plant. My poor comprehension of the French language turned the reply into nonsense, later to be a source of amusement. 'Connais-tu cette plante?' I asked. She took a look and a sniff and replied 'C'est menthe au lait.' Later I searched my books on the botany of France for 'menthe au lait'. It was useless. The name did not seem to exist. Then it dawned on me.. She had said 'mentholée'! A word new to me. It means minty. Indeed it has an exceedingly powerful minty smell, and I would suggest a bit more menthol than mint.. But it is not a mint. The true mints are distinguished by a different flower form. In those, the flowers are approximately radially symmetrical, that is to say, if a flower is cut straight through on any diameter the two halves look much the same, and the five petal lobes are much the same. But the flowers of this plant have quite clearly two lips. It is found along the waysides particularly on limy soil. It grows up to 60 cms high. The leaves are 1 to 2 cms wide, the stems square in section. The two lower teeth of the calyx (the structure holding the petal tube) are more prolonged than the other three upper ones. The photo was taken in mid November, after a series of frosts. It is frost resistant, which causes one to wonder why it is only found sporadically in southern Britain. It seems that its distribution in the North is on the decline. In Belgium it now is reduced to only one location.

In France it is reasonably common. It flowers from summer to late in the year and could well be in flower in December in France.

The dried leaves, or fresh, make an excellent minty tisane. This plant was greatly prized in the middle ages by the herbalists, as a relief for the hiccups, belching and other flatulence of the guts. It was recommended to be taken as a relief after a large meal. Thus, so it is, that it descends to us in these days in the form of after dinner mints! In those distant days (the 1200's) it was promoted by a certain doctor, Bernard de Gourdon. He, no less, was un enfant of the house of the lords of Gourdon, the town in which I now live. It became one of the herbs of 'la grande elixir de Chartreuse', used in that famous liqueur. It was one of the constituent herbs of the 'Eau d'arquebusade' a potion which was supposed to help the cure of wounds in battle. The common name of 'calamint' derives from its use by the early herbalists and signifies in Greek the 'excellent mint'.

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