Peppermint, Spearmint and Water Mint...what's the connection?
It's a family connection! Peppermint is a result of Spearmint and Water Mint mixing their genes and giving rise to the more powerful Peppermint. You can see that in the botanical names - Spearmint is Mentha spicata, Water Mint is Mentha aquatica. Peppermint drops the 'aquatica' (though it does well in water) and takes the name Mentha piperita × spicata. The x means that it's a hybrid or 'crossed with'.
Don't panic if it's confusing. Until the 1600s, it was generally thought that there was only one kind of Mint!
I'm writing a whole article on the 3 varieties shortly for the Ligaya Garden website where I delve into the herbal differences between the them. It's too big for a single post here but I'll probably break it down into a couple for this platform.
To sum it up though, Peppermint is the Queen, having the strongest and more potent constituents and healing abilities. Spearmint is next and shares many of the same properties but in a milder form (making it better for children and the elderly or those with chronic, debilitating illnesses to start with). It's a bit harder to define Water Mint clearly, though and I'm still working on that.
The Lamiaceae family of plants is huge and with a wide range of healing abilities for we ailing humans but the key throughout all of the members is their volatile (aka ''essential') oils.
We have our own Aussie aquatic mint too! It's Mentha australis or River Mint. It has similar properties to other Mints but I'm still getting a handle on using it medicinally.
Some of you may have seen that I've been writing a series of posts about herbs and making herbal remedies at home. I want to share what I know of this topic so that, as the world gets crazier, folks will have other avenues of medical care, namely those of themselves and their community. If you look back over this blog, you can see heaps of info on the topic, plus loads and loads of posts on herbs and using Australian bushfoods from a white perspective. If you haven't been around on in the @hivegarden and @naturalmedicine communities for long, you may be interested in looking back. There's w-a-a-a-a-y too much there for me to repost and the Hive system doesn't let you vote on old posts so, if you're happy with what you find, I believe that there is now a tip option...
