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Nepeta cataria
Also called Catswort, Or catmint, Cat Mint, Catmint, Wild Catmint, Catwort, Field Balm
Catnip is a short-lived perennial herb in the mint family, grown for its fragrant gray-green leaves and spikes of small white flowers. It thrives in sunny, well-drained spots and tolerates poor soil and dryness.
Nepeta cataria, commonly known as catnip or catmint, is a species of the genus Nepeta in the mint family. It is native to southern and eastern Europe, northern parts of the Middle East, and Central Asia. The plant is widely naturalized in northern Europe, New Zealand, and North America. The common name catmint can also refer to the genus as a whole.
Catnip is a short-lived perennial herb that grows between 30–100 cm (12–39 in) tall. It has square stems, grayish canescent leaves that vary in shape and have serrated edges, fragrant small bilabiate flowers arranged in raceme spikes, and produces small three-sided nutlets containing one to four seeds. It was described by Carl Linnaeus in 1753, with no subspecies but multiple botanical synonyms.
According to Plants of the World Online, the native range of catnip includes a large part of Eurasia. In Europe it is certainly native to the south around the Mediterranean and in the east, but sources disagree on its native status in the north in countries like the Baltic Countries, Germany, the Netherlands, and United Kingdom. Around the Mediterranean it is identified as native in Portugal, Spain, France, Corsica, Italy, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece. In the East it is native to Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, European Russia, and the Caucasus. It is generally agreed to be an introduced species in Scandinavia, Poland, and may also grow in Ireland.
The plant terpenoid nepetalactone is the main chemical constituent of the essential oil of Nepeta cataria. Nepetalactone can be extracted from catnip by steam distillation.
Nepeta cyanea · Catmint · Caucasus catmint · Lesser Cat Mint · Raceme catnip · Siberian Catmint · Catmint · Catmint
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Catnip 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.
Pet safety from the ASPCA toxic and non-toxic plant lists.
