Peppermint Leaf

Product Description

A perennial hybrid, with a menthol or distinct peppermint aroma The stems, coming from connected underground roots, are erect, square and branching, tinged with reddish-purple. The opposite, dark green, ovate to lanceolate, serrated leaves are smooth with few hairs. Flowers are pale violet in loose, interrupted terminal spikes. It is mostly cultivated. Found wild in moist cool, damp streams in lower altitudes, except California.

It has many culinary uses. Used as a anodyne, carminative, refrigerant, and fonic. Preparations from the leaves are used traditionally for colds, coughs, fevers, nausea, cramps, indigestion, gas, stomachaches, headaches, nervous tension, insomnia, and heartburn. It anesthetizes the nerves in the intestinal tract where catnip and angelica have a low-level drug antispasmodic effect. Steep 2~3 teaspoons of the leaves in 1 cup water. Take 1 1/2-2 cups a day. After 12 days wait a week before resuming. Repels mice and rats.