''Agastache'' () is a

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

of aromatic flowering

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of ...

perennial In horticulture, the term perennial ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the year") is used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. It has thus been defined as a plant that lives more than 2 years. The term is also ...

plants in the

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

Lamiaceae The Lamiaceae ( ) or Labiatae are a family (biology), family of flowering plants commonly known as the mint, deadnettle, or sage family. Many of the plants are aromatic in all parts and include widely used culinary herbs like basil (herb), ba ...

. It contains 22 species, mainly

native Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis'', nationality by blood * '' Jus soli'', nationality by location of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Nat ...

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

, one species native to eastern

Asia Asia ( , ) is the largest continent in the world by both land area and population. It covers an area of more than 44 million square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8% of Earth's total surface area. The continent, which ...

. The common names of the species are a variety of fairly ambiguous and confusing "

hyssop ''Hyssopus officinalis'' or hyssop is a shrub in the Lamiaceae or mint family native to Southern Europe, the Middle East, and the region surrounding the Caspian Sea. Due to its purported properties as an antiseptic, cough reliever, and expect ...

s" and "

mints A mint or breath mint is a food item often consumed as an after-meal refreshment or before business and social engagements to improve breath odor. Mints are commonly believed to soothe the stomach, given their association with natural byproducts ...

"; as a whole the genus is known as giant hyssops or hummingbird mints.

Description

Most species are very upright, tall, with stiff, angular stems clothed in toothed-edged, lance-shaped leaves ranging from long and 0.5–11 cm broad depending on the species. Upright spikes of tubular, two-lipped flowers develop at the stem tips in summer. The flowers are usually white, pink, mauve, or purple, with the bracts that back the flowers being of the same or a slightly contrasting color.

Taxonomy

''Agastache'' derives from the

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek (, ; ) includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the classical antiquity, ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Greek ...

words () "very much" and () "ear of grain", describing the flower spikes. The genus was established in 1762 by

Jan Frederik Gronovius Jan Frederik Gronovius (also seen as Johann Frederik and Johannes Fredericus) (10 February 1690 in Leiden – 10 July 1762 in Leiden) was a Dutch botanist notable as a patron of Carl Linnaeus, Linnaeus. John Clayton (botanist), John Clayton, a pl ...

in the second edition of his controversial ''Flora Virginica'', based on the specimens and notes of

John Clayton John Clayton may refer to: Arts and entertainment Writing *John Clayton (architect) (died 1861), English architect and writer *John Clayton (sportswriter) (1954–2022), American sportswriter and reporter *John Bell Clayton and Martha Clayton, Joh ...

. It is a member of subfamily Nepetoideae, which contains a large proportion of the world's aromatic culinary

herbs Herbs are a widely distributed and widespread group of plants, excluding vegetables, with savory or aromatic properties that are used for flavoring and garnish (food), garnishing food, for medicinal purposes, or for fragrances. Culinary use typi ...

. Within its subfamily, it belongs to the

mint Mint or The Mint may refer to: Plants * Lamiaceae, the mint family ** ''Mentha'', the genus of plants commonly known as "mint" Coins and collectibles * Mint (facility), a facility for manufacturing coins * Mint condition, a state of like-new ...

tribe (

Mentheae Mentheae is the largest tribe of plants in the family Lamiaceae. It includes herbs such as sage, hyssop, mint, bee balm and thyme. Genera Subtribe Lycopinae * '' Lycopus'' (21 living species) Subtribe Menthinae * '' Acanthomintha'' * '' Blephil ...

), and therein to the

catmint Catmint usually refers to: * the genus ''Anisomeles'' * the garden plant ''Nepeta'' × ''faassenii'' It may also refer to * '' Anisomeles indica'' * '' Anisomeles malabarica'', Malabar catmint * the plant genus ''Nepeta'' ** ''Nepeta cataria ...

subtribe Subtribe is a taxonomic category ranking which is below the rank of tribe and above genus. The standard suffix for a subtribe is -ina (in animals) or -inae (in plants). The first use of this word dates back to the late 19th century. An example of ...

( Nepetinae). The Nepetinae are robustly supported by

cladistic Cladistics ( ; from Ancient Greek 'branch') is an approach to biological classification in which organisms are categorized in groups ("clades") based on hypotheses of most recent common ancestry. The evidence for hypothesized relationships is ...

analyses of morphological and

DNA sequence A nucleic acid sequence is a succession of bases within the nucleotides forming alleles within a DNA (using GACT) or RNA (GACU) molecule. This succession is denoted by a series of a set of five different letters that indicate the order of the nu ...

data, and were recognized as early as the mid-late 19th century. (HTML abstract) Agastache nepetoides drawing

The closest living relatives of ''Agastache'' are believed to be two very different lineages: One is a group of mostly Asian and usually strongly aromatic and rather robust plants, which contains the typical dragonheads (''Dracocephalum''), true hyssops ('' Hyssopus''), West Asian dragonheads (''

Lallemantia ''Lallemantia'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae. It is named after the German botanist Julius Léopold Eduard Avé-Lallemant. There are five species in the genus. They are native to central and southwestern Asia. They are ...

''), and Japanese catnip ('' Schizonepeta''). By contrast, the other lineage unites the largely scentless and low-growing genera ''

Glechoma ''Glechoma'' is a genus of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae, first described for modern science in 1753. It is distributed in northern Asia and Europe with a center of diversity in Asia, especially China. One species is naturalized ...

'' and '' Meehania'' which occur widely across the

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

. These three lineages form a tight-knit

radiation In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or a material medium. This includes: * ''electromagnetic radiation'' consisting of photons, such as radio waves, microwaves, infr ...

; as of 2016, it is not resolved with certainty which of the other two lineages is the

sister taxon In phylogenetics, a sister group or sister taxon, also called an adelphotaxon, comprises the closest relative(s) of another given unit in an evolutionary tree. Definition The expression is most easily illustrated by a cladogram: Taxon A and ...

of ''Agastache'', but most data place the aromatic group slightly closer. The genus ''Agastache'' seems to have originated as a North American/trans-Beringian offshoot of its radiation about 25 million years ago, in the

Late Oligocene The Chattian is, in the geologic timescale The geologic time scale or geological time scale (GTS) is a representation of time based on the rock record of Earth. It is a system of chronological dating that uses chronostratigraphy (the pro ...

. The sister group of this clade is the core of the Nepetinae, the more or less robust and typically aromatic catmints (''

Nepeta ''Nepeta'' is a genus of flowering plants in the family (biology), family Lamiaceae. The genus name, from Latin (“catnip”), is reportedly in reference to Nepi, Nepete, an ancient Etruscan cities, Etruscan city.

'') and their close relatives which occur mainly in and around western Asia. The

monotypic In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon. A monotypic species is one that does not include subspecies or smaller, infraspecific taxa. In the case of genera, the term "unisp ...

and highly distinct '' Cedronella'' (Canary balm) of

Macaronesia Macaronesia (; ) is a collection of four volcanic archipelagos in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlantic, North Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of North Africa and Europe. Each archipelago is made up of a number of list of islands in the Atlantic Oc ...

is slightly more distant and seems to be a basal

relict A relict is a surviving remnant of a natural phenomenon. Biology A relict (or relic) is an organism that at an earlier time was abundant in a large area but now occurs at only one or a few small areas. Geology and geomorphology In geology, a r ...

within the subtribe. Thus, the

last common ancestor A most recent common ancestor (MRCA), also known as a last common ancestor (LCA), is the most recent individual from which all organisms of a set are inferred to have descended. The most recent common ancestor of a higher taxon is generally assu ...

of ''Agastache'' and its closest relatives probably was an aromatic Eastern Asian

subshrub A subshrub (Latin ''suffrutex'') or undershrub is either a small shrub (e.g. prostrate shrubs) or a perennial that is largely herbaceous but slightly woody at the base (e.g. garden pink and florist's chrysanthemum). The term is often interch ...

with verticillasters of bluish-purple flowers – i.e. generally very similar to the present-day ''Agastache'' already. The

plesiomorphic In phylogenetics, a plesiomorphy ("near form") and symplesiomorphy are synonyms for an ancestral character shared by all members of a clade, which does not distinguish the clade from other clades. Plesiomorphy, symplesiomorphy, apomorphy, an ...

appearance of ''Agastache'' is underscored by the fact that some of its species were formerly placed in '' Lophanthus'' and even ''Cedronella''; essentially, the genus as recognized today was distributed piecemeal across the entire Nepetinae. In general, the evolutionary pattern of the subtribe is a mostly eastward expansion from an origin in the southern or the eastern Mediterranean region, which spread across much of the

Old World The "Old World" () is a term for Afro-Eurasia coined by Europeans after 1493, when they became aware of the existence of the Americas. It is used to contrast the continents of Africa, Europe, and Asia in the Eastern Hemisphere, previously ...

and with three genera reached North America. ''Agastache'' is divided into two

section Section, Sectioning, or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

s, sect. ''Agastache'' and sect. ''Brittonastrum''. The former occurs in and around western to central North America, extending across the

Bering Strait The Bering Strait ( , ; ) is a strait between the Pacific and Arctic oceans, separating the Chukchi Peninsula of the Russian Far East from the Seward Peninsula of Alaska. The present Russia–United States maritime boundary is at 168° 58' ...

into

East Asia East Asia is a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan, plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau. The economies of Economy of China, China, Economy of Ja ...

. It is characterized by the upper lip of the corolla being small, causing the stalks of the stamina to protrude widely. Furthermore, two of the four stamina have curving stalks, which cross those of the other pair. Section ''Brittonastrum'' is found in and around southwestern North America, with the highest diversity in the uplands of northern Mexico. Its members have a more well-developed upper corolla lip, under which the stamina run parallel to each other without crossing, and are entirely hidden from view or only protrude with the anthers and stalk tips.

Species

The sections with their species are: ;''Agastache'' sect. ''Agastache'' – typical giant hyssops * '' Agastache cusickii'' (Greenm.) A.Heller – Cusick's giant hyssop. NW USA (Idaho, Oregon, Montana, Nevada) * ''

Agastache foeniculum ''Agastache foeniculum'' ( syn. ''Agastache anethiodora'' ( Nutt.) Britton), commonly called anise hyssop, blue giant hyssop, Fragrant giant hyssop, or the lavender giant hyssop, is a species of perennial plant in the mint family (Lamiaceae). T ...

'' (Pursh) Kuntze (= ''A. anethiodora, A. anisata'') – lavender giant hyssop, anise hyssop, etc. Widespread from Arctic Canada to Colorado and Kentucky; naturalized in Austria * '' Agastache nepetoides'' (L.) Kuntze – yellow giant hyssop. Eastern North America from southern Ontario and southern Quebec south to Oklahoma and Georgia * '' Agastache occidentalis'' (Piper) A.Heller – western giant hyssop. Washington, Oregon * '' Agastache parvifolia'' Eastw. – small-leaf giant hyssop. Northern California * ''

Agastache rugosa ''Agastache rugosa'', also known as wrinkled giant hyssop, Korean mint, purple giant hyssop, Indian mint and Chinese patchouli is an aromatic herb in the Lamiaceae, mint family, native to East Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Russian Primorye, Taiwan, ...

'' (Fisch. & C.A.Mey.) Kuntze – wrinkled giant hyssop, Korean mint, etc. Southeastern Russia (

Primoriye Primorsky Krai, informally known as Primorye, is a federal subject (a krai) of Russia, part of the Far Eastern Federal District in the Russian Far East. The city of Vladivostok on the southern coast of the krai is its administrative center, an ...

, Khabarovsk), Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan; naturalized in Laos and Vietnam * ''

Agastache scrophulariifolia ''Agastache scrophulariifolia'', also known as the purple giant hyssop, is a perennial plant that grows throughout the United States and northern Ontario, Canada. Its name comes from the similarity of its leaves to plants of the genus ''Scrophula ...

'' (Willd.) Kuntze – purple giant hyssop. Eastern North America from southern Ontario and South Dakora south to Georgia * '' Agastache urticifolia'' (Benth.) Kuntze – nettle-leaf giant hyssop, horsemint; Western North America from British Columbia south to California and Colorado ;''Agastache'' sect. ''Brittonastrum'' – hummingbird mints * '' Agastache aurantiaca'' (A.Gray) Lint & Epling – orange hummingbird mint. Mexico (Chihuahua, Durango) * '' Agastache breviflora'' (A.Gray) Epling – Trans-Pecos giant hyssop. Northern Mexico (Chihuahua, Sonora), SW USA (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas) * '' Agastache cana'' (Hook.) Wooton & Standl. – Texas hummingbird mint, mosquito plant, etc. SW USA (New Mexico, Western Texas) * '' Agastache coccinea'' (Greene) Lint & Epling – red hummingbird mint. Mexico (Chihuahua, Durango) * '' Agastache eplingiana'' R.W.Sanders – Epling's giant hyssop. Mexico (Durango) * '' Agastache mearnsii'' Wooton & Standl. – San Luis Mountain giant hyssop. New Mexico, Chihuahua, Sonora * '' Agastache mexicana'' (Kunth) Lint & Epling – Mexican giant hyssop. Widespread across much of Mexico * '' Agastache micrantha'' (A.Gray) Wooton & Standl. – white giant hyssop. Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Chihuahua * '' Agastache pallida'' (Lindl.) Cory (= ''A. barberi'') - pale giant hyssop, giant hummingbird mint. Northern Mexico (Chihuahua, Durango, Sonora), southwestern USA (Arizona) * '' Agastache pallidiflora'' (A.Heller) Rydb. – New Mexico giant hyssop, Bill Williams Mountain giant hyssop. Northern Mexico (Chihuahua), Southwestern USA (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, western Texas) * '' Agastache palmeri'' (B.L.Rob.) Standl. – Palmer's giant hyssop. Central + northeastern Mexico * '' Agastache pringlei'' (Briq.) Lint & Epling – Pringle's giant hyssop, Organ Mountains giant hyssop. Northern Mexico (Chihuahua), southwestern USA (New Mexico) * '' Agastache rupestris'' (Greene) Standl. – threadleaf giant hyssop, licorice mint. Arizona, New Mexico * '' Agastache wrightii'' (Greenm.) Wooton & Standl. – Sonoran giant hyssop. Arizona, New Mexico, Chihuahua, Sonora

Ecology

They grow easily in moist, well-drained soil and prefer a sunny position. Winter hardiness varies; the hardiest is '' A. foeniculum'', hardy to USDA plant hardiness zone 1 in the north of its range; '' A. nepetoides'', '' A. rugosa'', '' A. scrophulariifolia'' and '' A. urticifolia'' are hardy to zones 3–5 in the northern parts of their ranges.

Cultivation and uses

Propagate from seed or cuttings. Popular cultivars include '' A. cana'' 'Heather Queen'. The cultivar 'Blue Fortune' has gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. It includes the full range of cultivated p ...

. Leaf tips can be eaten and made into teas. ''Agastache rugosa'' has a history of use in

Chinese herbology Chinese herbology () is the theory of traditional Chinese herbal therapy, which accounts for the majority of treatments in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). A ''Nature'' editorial described TCM as "fraught with pseudoscience", and said that t ...

References

External links

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Plants for a Future
{{Authority control Lamiaceae genera