8,743
edits
Changes
no edit summary
{{SPlantbox
|genus=Nepeta
|Temp Metric=°F
|jumpin=If this plant info box on watering; zones; height; etc. is mostly empty you can click on the edit tab and fill in the blanks!
|image=Upload.png
|image_width=240
}}
{{Inc|
Nepeta (Latin, perhaps from Nepete, an Etrurian city). Labiatae. This group includes catnip, ground ivy and some other hardy perennial herbs of the easiest culture.
Perennial or annual herbs, tall and erect, or dwarf and more or less trailing: lvs. dentate or incised, the floral ones like the rest or reduced to bracts: whorls of fls. crowded in a dense spike, or in a loose cyme, rarely few-fld. and axillary; fls. blue or white, seldom yellow; calyx 15-nerved; corolla somewhat 2-lipped; upper lip straight or erect; lower lip spreading, 3-lobed, with the large center lobe concave; perfect stamens 4. in pairs, the 2 shorter ones in front; ovary 4-parted. The genus is placed near Lopanthus and Dracocephalum, and is characterized as follows: calyx tubular, the mouth straight or oblique, 5-toothed; stamens usually parallel, ascending; anther-cells divergent or divaricate.— About 150 species, mostly in the northern hemisphere outside the Old World tropics.
Catnip is a familiar weed near dwellings and barns. Cats are fond of it, and catnip tea is a pungent memory with those who have survived the era of homely simples. The seeds of catnip are still offered. Ground ivy (N. hederacea) also grows wild in America, and a form of it with variegated foliage is cultivated for edging flower-beds or covering banks and stones. It is hardy in light well-drained soils, but sometimes winter-kills in moist soils. It is also used in vases and baskets. N. hederacea is a perennial creeping plant of easy culture in any loose, rich, fairly moist soil in either shade or full sunlight, but to be luxuriant in the open it should have a moist rootage. It is a very rapid grower, and is therefore often troublesome when planted with other low-growing plants. It is very useful as a ground-covering in shrubbery borders and shady places generally, particularly where it can hang over curbs or edgings or where a good sward cannot be secured.
}}
{{Taxobox
{{Taxobox
| color = lightgreen
| color = lightgreen