Catmint

Description

Anisomeles indica, or catmint, is a species of herbaceous plant native to eastern Asia and naturalized on some Pacific islands. Anisomeles is a genus of herbs of the family Lamiaceae and is native to China, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia, Madagascar, and some Pacific and Indian Ocean islands.Plants in the genus Anisomeles have small, flat, narrow elliptic to narrow e.g.-shaped leaves arranged in opposite pairs, the edges of the leaves sometimes wavy or serrated. The flowers are arranged in groups, with five sepals and five petals in two "lips", the lower lip with three lobes, the middle lobe much longer than the side lobes. There are four stamens that extend beyond the petals and a single style in a depression on top of the ovary. The fruit is a schizocarp with four nutlets containing small seeds. The genus Anisomeles was first formally described in 1810 by Robert Brown in his Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae Van Diemen.The name Anisomeles means "unequal limbs", referring to the petal lobes.