Water mint, hierbabuena de agua

Description:

It is a herbaceous rhizomatous perennial plant growing to 90 centimetres tall. The stems are square in cross section, green or purple, and variably hairy to almost hairless. The rhizomes are wide-spreading, fleshy, and bear fibrous roots. The leaves are ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 2 to 6 centimetres long and 1 to 4 centimetres broad, green (sometimes purplish), opposite, toothed, and vary from hairy to nearly hairless. The flowers are tiny, densely crowded, purple, tubular, pinkish to lilac in colour; flowering is from mid to late summer. Water Mint is pollinated by insects, and also spreads by underground rhizomes, like other species of mint. All parts of the plant have a distinctly minty smell

Habitat:

Water Mint occurs in the shallow margins and channels of streams, rivers, pools, dikes, ditches, canals, wet meadows, marshes and fens. If the plant grows in the water itself, it rises above the surface of the water. It generally occurs on mildly acid to calcareous (it is common on soft limestone) mineral or peaty soils. This one was spotted in a small brook close to the beach