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(Return to Family List)
Mint Family
The Lamiaceae is a cosmopolitan family, many members of which are economically important as culinary herbs (mint, lavender, basil, oregano, rosemary, sage, savory, thyme) and as garden ornamentals (Salvia, Ajuga, Monarda, Coleus, Stachys). Teak, the tropical timber tree, is also a mint! Most of our members are weedy plants of lawns, gardens, roadsides and waste places.
The family can be recognized easily by vegetative characters: herbaceous mints have square stems with simple opposite leaves. Flowers typically are produced in the axils of leaves, often with so many small flowers that they appear whorled at each node. Individual flowers are bisexual, generally bilaterally symmetrical. There are usually 5 fused sepals, 5 fused petals forming a tube with an upper and lower lip, 2 or 4 stamens, and a superior ovary which is deeply cleft into 4 "nutlets." The style arises from the center of these 4 nutlets, often from their base.
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