Mentha pulegium L.

Spice Flower detail Flowers In the field

Family: LABIATAE (LAMIACEAE)

Genus: Mentha

Catalan common name: Poliol. Poliol d'aigua. Puriol.

Spanish common name: Poleo.

Province distribution: Alacant. Balearic Islands. Barcelona. Girona. Lleida. Tarragona.

Distribution in the islands: Mallorca. Menorca.

General distribution (Phytogeography): Holoartica

Uses and properties: Aromatic. Edible or foodstuffs. Medicinal.

IUCN Category: LCLeast concern

Flowering time: JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec

Life-forms: Hemicryptophyte.

Habitats: Cultivated fields, path and road sides, disturbed zones. Non-saline wetlands (intermittent watercourses, streams, artesian wells, ditches). Therophytic silicolous fields. Non-saline wetlands (intermittent watercourses, streams, artesian wells, ditches), fields.

Characteristics: Poleo is a small herb with the typical smell of mint when we hold it between our fingers. It grows erectly from the ground, making the opposite leaves clearly visible: small ones with a more or less oval margin and not very large. At the top of the plant there are flowers, typically grouped in false whorls in the axil of the leaves. The flowers are lilac and ripen from bottom to top; thus, while the inflorescence grows vertically it forms new flowers, which are firstly buds, then they open and finally, the oldest ones already have their fruits. It lives slightly moist places, often along the sides of ponds and torrents (dry river beds), but we can also find it in dry fields. It flowers at the end of spring and beginning of summer.