Nettleleaf Giant Hyssop

Description

Agastache urticifolia is a species of flowering plant in the mint family known by the common name nettleleaf giant hyssop or horse mint. It is native to western North America from British Columbia to California to Colorado, where it grows in many habitat types. This is an aromatic perennial herb growing an erect stem with widely spaced leaves, each lance-shaped to nearly triangular and toothed. The leaves are up to 8 centimeters long and 7 wide. The inflorescence is a dense spike of many flowers. Each flower has long sepals tipped with bright purple and tubular corollas in shades of pink and purple. The fruit is a light brown, fuzzy nutlet about 2 millimeters long. The dried leaves and flowers can be made into tea. It has been used medicinally to treat rheumatism, upset stomachs, and colds. The plant was used medicinally by several Native American groups, especially the leaves. Agastache is a genus of aromatic flowering herbaceous perennial plants in the family Lamiaceae. It contains 22 species, mainly native to North America, one species native to eastern Asia. The common names of the species are a variety of fairly ambiguous and confusing "hyssops" and "mints"; as a whole the genus is known as giant hyssops or hummingbird mints. Most species are very upright, 0.5-3 m tall, with stiff, angular stems clothed in toothed-edged, lance shaped leaves ranging from 1-15 cm long and 0.5-11 cm broad depending on the species. Upright spikes of tubular, two-lipped flowers develop at the stem tips in summer. The flowers are usually white, pink, mauve, or purple, with the bracts that back the flowers being of the same or a slightly contrasting color. Agastache derives from the Ancient Greek words ἄγαν (ágan) "very much" and στάχυς (stákhus) "ear of grain", describing the flower spikes. The genus was established in 1762 by Jan Frederik Gronovius in the second edition of his controversial Flora Virginica, based on the specimens and notes of John Clayton. It is a member of subfamily Nepetoideae, which contains a large proportion of the world's aromatic culinary herbs. Within its subfamily, it belongs to the mint tribe (Mentheae), and therein to the catmint subtribe (Nepetinae).