Mentha pulegium

Pennyroyal

Family: Lamiaceae · Type: perennial · Not Native

Conservation status: Cal-IPC Yes

Pennyroyal is a naturalized perennial found in coastal, northern California, central California, Great Valley, central western California, and Peninsular Ranges in moist places and fields at elevations below 1,400 meters. Flowering from July to October, this plant produces violet to lavender flowers in dense axillary head-like clusters. Growing with decumbent to ascending stems 10 to 30 centimeters tall that are short-hairy, it spreads across the ground with a spreading habit. Its leaves are narrowly ovate to elliptic, 5 to 25 millimeters long, with entire to finely serrate edges and rounded tips that are short-hairy underneath. The small flowers are subtended by reflexed leaves or leaf-like bracts, giving the plant a distinctive clustered appearance.

Habitat: Moist places, fields

Bloom period: Jul-Oct

Elevation: < 1400 m

Bioregions: NCo, NCoRO, NCoRI, CaR, SN, GV, CW, PR

California counties: Amador, Mendocino, Humboldt, Santa Clara, Marin, Sonoma, San Diego, Monterey, Fresno, San Luis Obispo, San Mateo, Madera, Merced, Tehama, Butte, Shasta, Napa, Glenn, Tulare, Yolo, El Dorado, Solano, Sacramento, Sutter, Santa Cruz, Yuba, Trinity, San Joaquin, Contra Costa, Riverside, Alameda, Calaveras, Mariposa, San Bernardino, Del Norte, Los Angeles, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Tuolumne

Data from The California Species Project — 14,000+ California species with verified data from CNPS, CDFW, USFWS, Jepson eFlora, Cal-IPC, and more.