MENTHA ARVENSIS

Common name: Field Mint, Wild Mint, Corn Mint • Assamese: podina • Hindi: बन पुदीना Ban pudina • Kannada: chetamargugu, chetni-marugu • Malayalam: putina, puttina, puttityana • Manipuri: নুংশী হিদাক nungshi-hidak • Marathi: pudina • Mizo: pudina • Sanskrit: pudina • Tamil: iyeccirkirai, kumarakamuli • Telugu: igaenglikoora, igaenglikura • Urdu: podina

Botanical name: Mentha arvensis L.    

Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)

Synonyms: Mentha parietariifolia, Calamintha arvensis

Specie type: Herbaceous perennial

Introduction: Field Mint is a herbaceous perennial plant growing to 10-60 cm (rarely to 100 cm) tall. The leaves are in opposite pairs, simple, 2-6.5 cm long and 1–2 cm broad, ovate, hairy, and with a coarsely serrated margin. The flowers are pale purple (occasionally white or pink), in distant clusters on the stem, each flower 3-4 mm long. Flowers are borne in spikes at the end of branches, 2.5-3 cm long, about 1 cm wide, continuous or interrupted at base. Bracts are linear-lanceolate, slightly longer than calyx. Flower-stalk is 1 mm. Sepal cup is bell-shaped, about 1.5 mm, subglabrous, glandular, obscurely 5-veined; teeth triangular-lanceolate, ca. 0.1 mm, ciliate. Flowers are purplish, about 3.5 mm, hairless, tube about 2 mm, petals subequal, tip notched. Ovary brown, glabrous. Nutlets brown, triquetrous, ovoid, ca. 0.7 mm, sparsely glandular. Field Mint is found throughout Eurasia and into tropical Asia, at altitudes of 1200-2000 m

Chemical constituents:

The chemical components of peppermint leaves and oil vary with plant maturity, variety, geographical region and processing conditions. The fatty acid composition of the non-polar lipid fraction of peppermint leaves is dominated by palmitic (16:0), linoleic (18:2) and linolenic (18:3) acids. The main volatile components identified in the essential oil of peppermint are menthol (33–60%), menthone (15–32%), isomenthone (2–8%), 1,8-cineole (eucalyptol) (5–13%), menthyl acetate (2–11%), menthofuran (1–10%), limonene (1–7%), β-myrcene (0.1–1.7%), β-caryophyllene (2–4%), pulegone (0.5– 1.6%) and carvone (1%). The leaves contain 1.2– 3.9% (v/w) essential oil (0.38% yield from fresh leaves) (Kaul et al., 2001), while an infusion of dried leaves is reported to contain 21% of the original oil (25 mg/L). Proportions of the individual components found in oil were both higher and lower than those found in the infused tea

Medicinal Uses

uses of peppermint as a folk remedy or in complementary and alternative medical therapy include: biliary disorders, dyspepsia, enteritis, flatulence, gastritis, intestinal colic, and spasms of the bile duct, gallbladder and gastrointestinal (GI) tract.