Pycnanthemum

Pycnanthemum is a genus of plants in the mint family (Lamiaceae). They are commonly known as mountain mints (or mountain-mints, mountainmints), though "the mountain mint" may also be any locally common species in particular. Some are known as koellias, after an obsolete genus name.

Mountain mints
Short-toothed mountain mint (Pycnanthemum muticum)
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Lamiales
Family: Lamiaceae
Subfamily: Nepetoideae
Tribe: Mentheae
Genus: Pycnanthemum
Michx.
Synonyms[1]
  • Furera Adans.
  • Brachystemum Michx.
  • Koellia Moench
  • Tullia Leavenw.
  • Pycnanthes Raf.

All of the species in this genus are native to North America.[1][2] Most are very strongly scented and pungent, and are used in cooking and in making herbal tea. Indeed, like the true mints (Mentha) they belong to the tribe Mentheae of subfamily Nepetoideae. However, while the mountain-mints are a highly advanced genus most probably closest to the bee balms (Monarda), which are also endemic to North America, the true mints are part of a more basal and largely European radiation of this tribe.

Species
  • Pycnanthemum albescens Torr. & A.Gray – white-leaved mountainmint – south-central US
  • Pycnanthemum beadlei (Small) Fernald – North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, eastern Tennessee, northern Georgia
  • Pycnanthemum californicum Torr. ex Durand – Sierra mint – California
  • Pycnanthemum clinopodioides Torr. & A.Gray – mid-Atlantic States, Tennessee, Indiana
  • Pycnanthemum curvipes (Greene) E.Grant & Epling – southeastern US
  • Pycnanthemum flexuosum (Walter) Britton, Sterns & Poggenb. – southeastern US
  • Pycnanthemum floridanum E.Grant & Epling – Florida mountainmint – Florida, southern Georgia
  • Pycnanthemum incanum (L.) Michx. – hoary mountainmint, hoary basil, wild basil – Ontario, most of US east of the Mississippi River
  • Pycnanthemum loomisii Nutt. – Loomis' mountainmint – southeastern US, Ohio Valley
  • †Pycnanthemum monotrichum Fernald – Virginia but extinct
  • Pycnanthemum montanum Michx. – southern Appalachians
  • Pycnanthemum muticum (Michx.) Pers. – short-toothed mountainmint – much of eastern US from east Texas to southern Maine
  • Pycnanthemum nudum Nutt. – southeastern US
  • Pycnanthemum pilosum Nutt. ( = P. verticillatum var. pilosum) – hairy mountainmint, whorled mountainmint
  • Pycnanthemum pycnanthemoides (Leavenw.) Fernald – southern mountainmint – southeastern US, Ohio Valley
  • Pycnanthemum setosum Nutt. – awned mountainmint – southeastern + mid-Atlantic US
  • Pycnanthemum tenuifolium Schrad. – little-leaved mountainmint, slender-leaved mountainmint (= P. flexuosum auct. non Walter) – Quebec, Ontario, eastern + central US
  • Pycnanthemum torreyi Benth. – Torrey's mountainmint – eastern + east-central US
  • Pycnanthemum verticillatum (Michx.) Pers. – whorled mountainmint – Quebec, Ontario, eastern + central US
  • Pycnanthemum virginianum (L.) T.Durand & B.D.Jacks. ex B.L.Rob. – Virginia mountainmint – Quebec, Ontario, eastern + central US

Footnotes
  1. "Pycnanthemum". World Checklist of Selected Plant Families (WCSP). Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
  2. "Pycnanthemum". County-level distribution maps from the North American Plant Atlas (NAPA). Biota of North America Program (BONAP). 2013.

References
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