men in the Linnaean herbarium marked by Linnaeus himself
as Menllia crista. If this be, as seems probable from
analogous variations in other species, and as Linnaeus long
since pronounced all curled-leaved plants, merely a monstrosity,
it is by no means easy to determine to which
among the known Mints it ought to be referred. The
quotation in the Species Plantarum of the synonym of
Hortus Cliffortianus proves that Linnaeus confounded with
it the M. crispata of Schrader, to which the specimens
in ClifFort’s herbarium belong; and Ehrhart seems to have
fallen into the same error, and to have led most of the
German botanists in his train. Even Sir James Smith does
not appear to have clearly distinguished between the two
plants, Ehrhart’s specimen of M. crispata being in his
herbarium attached to the same sheet with a garden specimen
of the true M. crispa of Linnaeus. Sir James himself
regards the former plant, as exemplified by the specimens
iu Cliffort’s collection, as a variety ofM. viridis, with
which specimens from Houston in his own herbarium
seem evidently to connect i t ; and in this he is followed
by Mr. Bentham. But the true M. crispa, although
extremely similar to M. crispata in habit, and agreeing
with it in many of its characters, can hardly be regarded as
a still further deviation from the same species, which in all
its varieties is constantly, in the adult state, glabrous, and
entirely destitute of hairs on the pedicelli of the flowers.
The Mentha crispa differs from M. piperita in the hairy
base of the calyx, from M. hirsuta in the naked peduncles,
from M. viridis in the petiolated leaves. From M. aqua-
tica, with which Mr. Bentham associates it, it seems to be
distinguished by the characters in which it approaches
M. viridis, by its spiked inflorescence, sparingly pilose
calyx, almost naked pedicels, glabrous corolla, subsessile
leaves, and strict habit. Dr. Stokes suspected it to be a
variety of M. piperita, between which and M. viridis its
true station will probably be found.
No truly natural habitat appears yet to have been noticed
for this species. That of Siberia, originally assigned to it
by 1 innaeus, appears, from a pencil note by Sir James Smith
in the Linnaean herbarium, to have been founded on a very
different plant. The Swiss habitat, adopted from Haller, is
taken up from specimens stated by that author himself to
have been exotic. And the plant of the Hartz, first noticed
by Weber in 1774, appears from the reference by Hoffman
of Ehrhart’s plant to the same locality, to have been the
Mentha crispata. J ames Mitchell, R.N.