Hello. i recently purchased this flower, it didn't have a tag but i thought it was Lemon mint. It looks like a mint plant, and the leaves smell like lemons. Anyhow, i got it home and looked up lemon mint...and it's definitely not it. So i have no idea what this is...it looks like a lot of things...salvia, goatsbeard, lobelia, scullcap....but so far nothing has been a match. i think it's something totally obvious, yet it's got me stumped. i'm pretty sure it's in the mint family...it has all the characteristics...square stem, opposing leaves, lipped flowers. The plant stands almost 3 feet tall, with 12 inches of that being the purple flower spike. The individual flowers are about 1" long. The leaves look like very similar to catnip, but are redish purple on the underside. Leaves smell like lemon when crushed. Any ideas???
That looks an awful lot like lemon balm. I have some growing in my garden. It's never bloomed before, but the leaves look almost identical.
Scratch that, I just looked up pictures of the lemon balm's flowers and they are completely different. I am currently searching for pics of different herbs that smell like mint. I'll post again if I find anything.
It sounds like lemon mint - but the flowers aren't quite right. Maybe you've got a hybrid plant?!? My lemonbalm has leaves that look like that too... but they're green on the underside, not reddish. Are the leaves "hairy" at all? love, mom
Could you post a picture that shows the foliage with the flower. Those look like to separate unrelated plants.
Hi! Sorry for the slow reply. i was out of town. Thanks for the help. It's definitely not lemon balm, i have lemon balm growing all over. i thought it looked a lot like a penstemon too, but the foliage is totally wrong. i'll post a picture of the complete plant tomarrow. It's about three foot tall though, so you won't be able to see the detail very well...but i assure you it's all the same plant. i'll have to look up the lemon bergamot, but i don't think thats it either. This thing has me totally stumped. Heres a bit of a close up, so you can see that the plant is all the same. Someone has to know what this is!!
Here are a couple pictures of lemon bergamot for you: It was the shape of the flower-clusters that most made me think of this. love, mom
It's similar, but i still don't think that's it. The actual flowers are quite differently shaped. They don't have the hoods like bermagot. Sigh...i just don't know.
I think it's probably stachys cooleyae: http://www.funet.fi/pub/sci/bio/life/plants/magnoliophyta/magnoliophytina/magnoliopsida/lamiaceae/stachys/cooleyae-1x.jpg http://www.cwnp.org/photopgs/sdoc/stcooleyae.html It is a member of the mint family, but it's a woodland wildflower on the Pacific west coast.
Thanks Gardener, i'm still not 100% confident that is it. The first picture the flower bud and shape of flower is wrong. The second picture looks very close though. The foliage is still significantly different, the leaves on my plant are more heart shaped. It has to be something closely related. If i ever figure out what it is i'll let ya know. thanks for the help! ~tree
If you have local college horticulture department near you take some of the foliage and flowers in they will be able to id it for you. Where did you get it, can't you phone them?
