The difference between peppermint and spearmint

Peppermint, also known as wild mint, night incense, Yindan grass, etc., is one of the commonly used traditional Chinese medicines, including green mint, fragrant mint, Dutch mint, green mint, parsley, fish parsley, etc., stems and leaves can be distilled to extract orchid fragrant oil, can be used as medicine or edible, the two can not be mixed in traditional Chinese medicine, let's take a look at the difference between them!

The difference between the stems and leaves of peppermint and spearmint

1. Peppermint: stem erect, 30-60 cm high, lower nodes with slender fibrous roots and horizontal creeping rhizomes, sharply tetragonous, with four grooves, distally inverted puberulent, lower puberulent, much branched, leaf blade oblong-lanceolate, 3-5 cm long, 0.8-3 cm wide, apex acute, base cuneate to subrounded, petiole 2-10 mm long, ventral concave back convex, puberulent.

2. Magnolia incense: stem erect, 40-130 cm high, glabrous or subglabrous, green, obtusely quadrangular, grooved and striped, sterile branches only attached to ground, leaves sessile or subsessile, ovate-oblong or oblong-lanceolate, 3-7 cm long, 1-2 cm wide, apex acute, base broadly cuneate to subrounded, margin with sharp and irregular serrate, herbaceous, green above, grayish green below.

The difference between the flowers and fruits of peppermint and spearmint

1. Peppermint: mint verticillium many flowers, flowers small lavender, lip-shaped, after flowering with dark purple-brown small fruit, with small glandular fossa, florescence from July to September, fruiting in October.

2. Magnolia incense: Cymbidium grows at the top of stems and branches, showing 4-10 cm long, intermittent but upward dense cylindrical spikes, purple or white, flowering from July to September.

The composition of mint is different from that of Magnolia.

1. Peppermint: peppermint fresh leaves contain 0.8% volatile oil, dry stems and leaves contain 1.3% menthol (about 77% 78%), followed by menthone (8% 12%). It also contains menthol acetate, camphene, limonene, isomenthone, pinene, menthone, resin and a small amount of tannin and rosmarinic acid.

2. Magnolia incense: the plant contains aromatic oil, with an oil content of 0.6-0.7%. The oil is called Magnolia oil or green mint oil, which is mainly composed of mushroom ketone (60-65%). In addition, there are lemon hydrocarbons, parsley oil hydrocarbons, etc., mainly used for candy, toothpaste spices, but also for medicine.

Peppermint and Magnolia incense have different effects.

1. Peppermint: peppermint taste pungent, cool, return to the lung and liver meridian, divergent wind-heat, clear throat, rash and detoxification, soothing the liver and relieving depression and itching and other effects. it is suitable for cold and fever, headache, sore throat, no sweat, wind-fire red eyes, rubella, skin itching, hernia pain, dysentery and dysentery. External use has a slight analgesic effect for neuralgia.

2. Magnolia fragrance: it is pungent, sweet, lukewarm, liver, spleen and stomach meridian, dispelling wind and cold, relieving cough, detoxification and detoxification, for cold, cough, stomachache, abdominal distension, nervous headache and other diseases. it is externally used for swollen pain, red eye pain, pediatric furuncle and so on.