Mentha pulegium LABIATAE
“Pudding Grasse” is one country name for pennyroyal, which in Scotland was used to flavour the traditional haggis, “Lurk-in-the-ditch” is another, as indeed it does, growing in low, boggy ground with no apparent ill-effects. It is a creeping ground-cover, a very useful plant for carpeting a difficult shady corner with its minty bright green leaves. It flowers through the summer, with 6-inch stems of fluffy mauve whorls at each leaf junction. It will also grow quite well in full sun, provided it has ample water and perhaps some shelter given by surrounding plants.
Pennyroyal is easy to grow, free from insect pests, and very useful to plant anywhere you have ant-nests you want to eradicate. Crazy paving and flagstones often suffer from sandy little ant-mounds at a cracked joint; so plant pennyroyal here and there in pockets, and you will be ant-free in no time.
Not a generation ago, an ointment made from pennyroyal was used as a mosquito and flea repellent, and you can get the same effect when gardening or bushwalking by rubbing some fresh leaves briskly over exposed skin. It will also deter ants from raiding your kitchen shelves if you sprinkle crushed pennyroyal leaves about. The perfume is delightful to us, but ants will be off and away as quickly as they can.
In the days of the sailing-ships, dried pennyroyal leaves were added to the water casks to keep them fresh and wholesome.
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