| Author | L. | |
| Distribution | Mostly in the Mountains, but scattered across the state. First collected in 1897 from "wet soil near Biltmore", Buncombe County. Specimens from Forsyth, Jackson, Montgomery, Robeson, and Wake counties are all from cultivated plants.
Native of Europe; in N.A. throughout. | |
| Abundance | Uncommon to infrequent in the Mountains; rare elsewhere. | |
| Habitat | Usually moist to wet soil of roadsides, meadows, pastures, bottomlands, sewer line, lawn weed, campus weed. | |
| Phenology | Flowering and fruiting June-September. | |
| Identification | Spearmint grows mostly 1-3 feet tall, glabrate, and quite fragrant. The leaves are sub-sessile, broadly lance-shaped to narrowly ovate, with deeply sunken veins to appear wrinkled. The spikes are terminal and axillary, narrow, elongate at maturity (up to 4.5 inches long). The flowers are small, pink, dense or interrupted on spikes. Peppermint (M. x piperita) is closely similar, but its leaves have definite stalks and the calyx is longer. | |
| Taxonomic Comments | | |
| Other Common Name(s) | | |
| State Rank | SE | |
| Global Rank | GNR | |
| State Status | | |
| US Status | | |
| USACE-agcp | FACW link |
| USACE-emp | FACW link |
