Schizonepeta seeds

LATIN NAME: SCHIZONEPETA TENUIFOLIA

COMMON NAME: Catmint Herb

The catmint herb whisks the upright, aromatic herb with the slender, lance-shaped, grey-green leaves and the long, dense, whisk-like spikes of the small, two-lipped, pale-violet flowers that open from the bottom upward through the summer, the bees crowding the spikes, the small, brown nutlets following. The plant grows into the airy, upright clump, and it likes the sun, and the well-drained soil.

Scientific Research & Plant Biotechnology

The aromatic compounds of the catmint herb give it a long place in the research on the medicinal herbs of the mint family, and the tenuifolia species appears in the studies of the essential oil chemistry and the long flowering season. The work looks at the traditional preparations, the way the spikes open from the bottom upward, and the seed biology. The pharmacognosists value the oils, and the growers of the aromatic medicinal herbs keep the species in their catalogues.

Ecological & Economic Value & Wide Applications

In the sunny garden, the catmint herb whisks the summer border with the violet spikes. The flowers feed the bees through the summer, the herb has served the traditional remedies for the ages, and the plant fills the herb border and the wild corner. It grows well in the well-drained, sunny ground. Whisk-spiked, aromatic and bee-fed.

To grow the Catmint Herb from seed, sow the seeds into the shallow drills of the seed tray in the spring, then cover them thinly, keep the drills gently moist, and the seedlings show themselves within a week or two.

Keep the drills gently watered, and thin the seedlings to the roomy spacing. The whisked spikes come within the season. Plant the young herbs in the sunny, well-drained ground, and the whisked spikes will rise through the summer.

Medicinal uses include:

Used alone as a carminative, diaphoretic, and antipyretic. Clears pathogenic Heat and Wind, fever, and treats throat complaints. Induces sweating.
For affection by exopathogenic wind-cold shown as aversion to cold, fever, headache and anhidrosis, it is often used with ledebouriella root and notopterygium root, as in Anti-phlogistic Powder of Schizonepeta and Ledebouriella .
For exterior syndrome due to pathogenic wind-heat with symptoms and signs of fever, headache, bloodshot eyes, and sore throat, often in combination with Honeysuckle flower, Forsythia fruit, Peppermint, Platycodon Root and other herbs, as in Powder of Lonicera and Forsythia .
For German measles, pruritus, and measles without adequate eruption, it is often used with peppermint, cicada slough, arctium fruit, etc. For various suppurative infections on the body surface at their initial stages accompanied with exterior syndrome, it is often used together with ledebouriella root, Honeysuckle flower, Forsythia fruit and other herbs.
For hematemesis, epistaxis, hemafecia, metrorrhagia and metrostaxis, carbonized schizonepeta is used in combination with other hemostatics.