Grayish, hairy "weed" from childhood memory
April 17, 2021 11:59 AM Subscribe
When I was a kid in southeastern Iowa, I remember we had a weed growing around our residential gas tank (not a photo of our actual tank) that I haven't seen elsewhere, and I can't figure out what it is from internet searches. I was told it was "horse mint" at one point, but the photos that name brings up don't look like the plant I remember.
It grew to about a foot and a half tall. The leaves occurred in pairs on opposite sides of the stem from one another, with each pair emerging at 90-degree angles to the pairs above or below it. They were very hairy / fuzzy, appearing gray, or light greenish gray. I remember the leaf margins being crenate (scalloped), and broader and more oblong than most of the images that come up for mints. Flowers were purple or light purple, on short spikes. I think the stems were square in cross-section. The whole plant had a pleasant odor but I don't remember it well enough to describe. It did try to spread, and was very vigorous, but it was contained to the gas tank area, because it wasn't vigorous enough to cope with repeated mowings.
It's possible that it wasn't actually a weed; it may have been planted there by a previous resident. It was also possibly a hybrid. It's also possible that I'm remembering certain details incorrectly, obviously.
Close but not quite it:
Mentha longifolia (horse mint): not hairy enough, leaf shape wrong, dentate margins, I remember fewer flowers further apart (but the flower color is about right).
Nepeta cataria (catnip): not hairy/gray enough, the leaves are the wrong shape, and the photos mostly show shorter plants than I remember, but overall habit and flower color are very close.
Mentha suaveolens (apple mint) looks very close in some pictures but there are too many flowers, too close together, and my plant didn't produce flowers in the axils, only in a spike at the very top of the plant (I think).
Any ideas?
It grew to about a foot and a half tall. The leaves occurred in pairs on opposite sides of the stem from one another, with each pair emerging at 90-degree angles to the pairs above or below it. They were very hairy / fuzzy, appearing gray, or light greenish gray. I remember the leaf margins being crenate (scalloped), and broader and more oblong than most of the images that come up for mints. Flowers were purple or light purple, on short spikes. I think the stems were square in cross-section. The whole plant had a pleasant odor but I don't remember it well enough to describe. It did try to spread, and was very vigorous, but it was contained to the gas tank area, because it wasn't vigorous enough to cope with repeated mowings.
It's possible that it wasn't actually a weed; it may have been planted there by a previous resident. It was also possibly a hybrid. It's also possible that I'm remembering certain details incorrectly, obviously.
Close but not quite it:
Mentha longifolia (horse mint): not hairy enough, leaf shape wrong, dentate margins, I remember fewer flowers further apart (but the flower color is about right).
Nepeta cataria (catnip): not hairy/gray enough, the leaves are the wrong shape, and the photos mostly show shorter plants than I remember, but overall habit and flower color are very close.
Mentha suaveolens (apple mint) looks very close in some pictures but there are too many flowers, too close together, and my plant didn't produce flowers in the axils, only in a spike at the very top of the plant (I think).
Any ideas?
This makes me think of what I learned to call Lamb’s Ear, latin name Stachys byzantina. It’s in the mint family and grey and fuzzy and flowers are purplish. In Maryland where I grew up it wasn’t considered a weed.
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:08 PM on April 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by needs more cowbell at 12:08 PM on April 17, 2021 [3 favorites]
Hold on, apparently dead nettle is found in Iowa.
So I'm going with that.
posted by tinkletown at 12:13 PM on April 17, 2021
So I'm going with that.
posted by tinkletown at 12:13 PM on April 17, 2021
Sounds like wooly lamb’s ear to me, too.
posted by Edna Million at 1:08 PM on April 17, 2021
posted by Edna Million at 1:08 PM on April 17, 2021
Best answer: Nepeta faassenii, aka Catmint is gray, aromatic, has purple flowers and opposite leaves with scalloped edges.
posted by niicholas at 2:08 PM on April 17, 2021
posted by niicholas at 2:08 PM on April 17, 2021
Response by poster: I think it was catmint (or some other very similar hybrid). Some of the photos that come up when I do an image search look more like I remember than others, but I've found that people are very bad at matching plant images to IDs, so I imagine some of that's people saying ennh, close enough when posting a picture. niicholas's link has a photo very much like what I remember, and that's to the Missouri Botanical Gardens, who I'd assume are careful to get the names and photos correct.
Thanks, everybody.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:02 PM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
Thanks, everybody.
posted by Spathe Cadet at 9:02 PM on April 17, 2021 [1 favorite]
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Neither are native to Iowa, but nettles do have medicinal/edible uses, so it's possible somebody tried to grow some.
posted by tinkletown at 12:07 PM on April 17, 2021