If you tear a leaf of Monarda -- just regular beebalm --and tear a a leaf of lemon mint you almost can't tell the difference, Arlene.
Here's another weird example: today I was saving some peppermint that I yanked out for my florist, who knows nothing about herbs, but anyway....I gave her spearmint the other day and she wanted peppermint, and even though I warned her, she still wanted it so . . I went to the other side of the particular garden and saw more mint but the leaves looked a little smaller. I pinched a leaf and smelled a yucky scent. I couldn't figure what it was but I have catnip at the far end of that garden too and it smells not too great to me. So I thought what I had found was wayward catnip and it really doesn't spread as much as the others. So I tear off an entire leaf, not very lemony but truly not a nice scent. I looked at where I was standing right in the middle of a few clumps of irises and realized about 3 or 4 years ago I had monarda there, but we had a severe drought then we had this past agonizing winter and I had not seen that bee balm in a few years. Welllll -- it's baaaaaaack.
And the point of all this stinky mint story is that there are many many many types of what we call mint scents, the plants are square stemmed, hairy leafed, serrated usually, so it's difficult to tell which is which especially when you've been yanking around in all of them at the same time. But I will tell you this, I love mint tea, but not from the monarda family. I mostly use lemon mint just for slight seasoning sometimes on fish or a sprinkle on a salad. It just isn't my favorite. Love the chocolate though, just to swish my hands through and walk right on by.
And so ends a very minty gardening day . . . whew.
