Mints have a tendency towards stirring up the mucous membranes (that’s all those pink shiny places inside the body that we try not to think about).

So while they definitely affect the whole body, they have an especial affinity for a few specific areas.

Parrots beak. Lousewort. Elephantella.

With common names like these, it’s hard not to be interested in this plant.

Like so many fragrant herbs, spicebush is a carminative. Carminative comes from the Latin carminare, meaning ‘makes you fart’. Okay, so not really. But it’s actual translation comes to something along the lines of ‘remove impurities’, so in essentials it comes to the same thing.