Floral Friday

Mint is a useful herb with properties that aid digestion and relieve headaches. It is a perennial with tiny flowers.

Mint flowers

All the information suggests it should be confined to a container, and we first planted it in a concrete tub, but have since allowed it to grow in other places as well.

Greek mythology traces mint to the story of Pluto/Hades, god of the underworld, who fell in love with a nymph named Mintha. This enraged Pluto’s wife Persephone, who stomped on Mintha. Pluto rescued her by turning her into a plant, one that has a fresh appealing scent when crushed. This story is mentioned in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Mint was used in ancient Greek funeral rites, along with rosemary and myrtle, presumably to mask the smell of the dead, and that may be why it came to be associated with Pluto/Hades.

It’s been around since ancient times
and features in some Latin rhymes