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Hedeoma pulegioides
Also called American Pennyroyal, Pudding Grass
A low, strongly mint-scented annual herb from eastern North America, growing 15 to 30 cm tall with small pale blue flowers in summer. It is grown mainly as a ground cover and insect-repellent herb and needs sun and well-drained soil.
Hedeoma pulegioides, also known as pennyrile, American pennyroyal, or American false pennyroyal, is a species of Hedeoma native to eastern North America, from Nova Scotia and southern Ontario west to Minnesota and South Dakota, and south to northern Georgia and Arkansas.
It is a low-growing, strongly aromatic herbaceous annual plant from 15 to 30 cm tall, with a slender erect much-branched, somewhat hairy and square stem. The leaves are small, thin, and rather narrow, with a strong mintlike odor and pungent taste. The flowers are pale blue, monoecious, produced in small clusters; it flowers from mid to late summer.
In the early 20th century, it was used "in domestic medicine, in the form of a warm infusion, to promote perspiration and as an emmenagogue." Upon ingestion, one of its components, pulegone, metabolizes into hepatotoxic metabolites that depending on dosage can lead to organ failure, seizures, and death.
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Hedeoma pulegioides by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
