สารบัญ

Thai name  สะระแหน่ญวน (SARANAE YUAN)

Category  Pharmaceutic aid (flavouring agent).

             Spearmint consists of the dried leaf and flowering top of Mentha spicata L. (Mentha crispa L.) or of Mentha × cardiaca (Gray) Bak. (Family Lamiaceae).

Origin of plant  Spearmint is native to Europe and Asia.

Constituents  The major constituent of Spearmint is a volatile oil containing predominantly carvone.

Description  Odour, aromatic, and characteristic; taste slightly pungent and characteristic, not followed by a cooling sensation in the mouth.
Macroscopical  More or less crumpled. Leaves sessile or subsessile, opposite, ovate-lanceolate blade, 3 to 7 cm long, with an acute or acuminate apex; base of the leaf, narrowed or rounded; margin, sharply and unequally serrate; colour, bright green; stems, nearly glabrous, sometimes green, but generally dusky red, or purplish colour, oppositely branched, quadrangular, ridged, and from 1 to 3 mm in diameter. Verticillasters, occurring on more or less crowded or interrupted, lanceolate, terminal spikes, 4 to 10 mm in diameter; bracts, linear-lanceolate, subulate, ciliate, 7 to 10 mm long; calyx, campanulate (M. spicata) to tubular-campanulate (M × cardiaca), subequally five-toothed, glandular-punctate, pubescent on teeth, green (M. spicata) to purplish red (M × cardiaca); corolla, glabrous, nearly white or from moderate yellowish brown to weak yellowish orange to pinkish to lilac and purple, tubular-campanulate; stamens in fours, equal; style, exserted, two-cleft at the summit; nutlets, ellipsoidal, minutely grained ((M  spicata)or warty (M × cardiaca)), dark brown, about 500 µm in diameter.
Microscopical  Green to olive-green.  It closely resembles powdered peppermint except for the absence of crystals from the globular heads of the glandular hairs and for the nonglandular hairs which are usually up to six-celled.

Packaging and storage  Spearmint shall be kept in well-closed containers and protected from light.

Foreign matter  Not more than 2.0 per cent w/w of stems over 3 mm in diameter or other foreign matter (Appendix 7.2).