This strong-smelling plant is common everywhere. It likes to grow in wet
places, and it is in flower towards the end of summer and in autumn.
The Water Mint is not an attractive plant. It has four-sided juicy green
stems stained with purple. These stems do not grow straight.
The flowers grow in pink clover-shaped heads, either at the end of the
main stem or sometimes on very short stalks which spring from between
the stem and the leaf.
Each pink head is made up of many tiny tubes. These tubes are prettily
cut round the mouth, and you can see four stamens, with deep crimson
heads, coming out of the mouth of each tube. The forked tip of the
seed-vessel is so tiny you scarcely notice it.
Below the flower there is a deep funnel-shaped calyx in which each pink
tube stands, and both it and the flowers are covered with fine soft
hairs. There is often a pair of small oval green leaves just beneath the
head of flowers.
The leaves of the Hairy Water Mint are broadly oval with widely
separated teeth round the edge. They grow in pairs on short stalks on
each side of the main stem, and they are hairy all over.