''Pycnanthemum virginianum'', the Virginia or common mountain-mint, is a

plant Plants are predominantly photosynthetic eukaryotes of the kingdom Plantae. Historically, the plant kingdom encompassed all living things that were not animals, and included algae and fungi; however, all current definitions of Plantae exclud ...

in the mint family,

Lamiaceae The Lamiaceae ( ) or Labiatae are a 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, mint, rosemary, sage, savory ...

. It is a

herbaceous plant 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 t ...

with narrow, opposite, simple

leaves A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...

, on wiry, green stems. The flowers are white with purplish spotting, borne in summer. Like most plants in the genus, the foliage has a strong mint fragrance when crushed or disturbed. It is native to the eastern

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

and eastern

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. The flowers are visited by many insects, including

honeybees A honey bee (also spelled honeybee) is a eusocial flying insect within the genus ''Apis'' of the bee clade, all native to Afro-Eurasia. After bees spread naturally throughout Africa and Eurasia, humans became responsible for the current cosmo ...

cuckoo bee The term cuckoo bee is used for a variety of different bee lineages which have evolved the kleptoparasitism, kleptoparasitic behaviour of laying their eggs in the nests of other bees, reminiscent of the behavior of cuckoo birds. The name is perhap ...

s, sweat bees, thread-waisted wasps,

potter wasp Potter wasps (or mason wasps), the Eumeninae, are a cosmopolitan wasp group presently treated as a subfamily of Vespidae, but sometimes recognized in the past as a separate family, Eumenidae. Recognition Most eumenine species are black or brown, ...

tachinid flies The Tachinidae are a large and variable family of true flies within the insect order Diptera, with more than 8,200 known species and many more to be discovered. Over 1,300 species have been described in North America alone. Insects in this family ...

, wedge-shaped beetles, and pearl crescent butterflies.

References

External links

virginianum Flora of the Northeastern United States Flora of the North-Central United States Flora of the Southeastern United States Flora of Eastern Canada Flora of the Appalachian Mountains Flora of the Great Lakes region (North America) Plants described in 1753 Taxa named by Carl Linnaeus Flora without expected TNC conservation status {{Lamiaceae-stub