Plant Wiki

The open plant encyclopedia

Know any plant.
Grow it well.

Snap a photo or search by any name to see how to care for it, where it comes from, whether it's safe, and a 3D model you can turn.

  • 13,000+plants with full pages
  • 365,000+plant species worldwide
  • 220+countries covered

Common in

See all

The plants people record most in your country, and ones that grow there wild.

What do you want to do?

Popular plants

Browse all plants

See them in 3D

All plants in 3D

Browse plants

Filter by what you want to do, shape, origin, country, care and safety.

Plant Wiki › Browse plants

Horse Mint

Mentha longifolia

Also called Horsemint, Biblical Mint, Silver Mint, Wild Mint

Horse Mint
Photo: Michael Becker, CC BY-SA 3.0
Family
Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Grows as
Perennial
Safety
Toxic to cats and dogs (ASPCA).
Native range
Macaronesia, Temp. Eurasia to S. Africa
Climate
temperate

About

Mentha longifolia, also known as horse mint, brookmint, fillymint or St. John's horsemint, is a species of plant in the family Lamiaceae. It is native to Europe excluding Britain and Ireland, western and central Asia (east to Nepal and far western China), and northern and southern (but not tropical) Africa.

How to grow it

Like almost all mints, Mentha longifolia can be invasive. Care needs to be taken when planting it in non-controlled areas.

Uses

Nicholas Culpeper's Complete Herbal (1653) states that "It is good for wind and colic in the stomach ... The juice, laid on warm, helps the King's evil or kernels in the throat ... The decoction or distilled water helps a stinking breath, proceeding from corruption of the teeth, and snuffed up the nose, purges the head. It helps the scurf or dandruff of the head used with vinegar."

Other Mentha plants

Mentha alaica · Water mint · Wild mint · Mentha longifolia var. asiatica · Mentha atrolilacina · Australian Mint · American Corn Mint · Carinthian Mint · Water Spearmint · Eau de Cologne mint · Hioi · Dahurian Thyme

Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Mentha longifolia by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts are shared under the same licence.

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.

Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.

Credits & terms

Identify a plant

Point at a leaf or flower and snap. One plant in frame works best.

Your photo
Starting camera…