Scientific name: family: mentha
Mint is a family of small plants with a strong taste and smell. It is used most often to make tea, jellies and sweets or candy. Most chewing gums, toothpastes and breath fresheners are mint flavoured. Fresh mint can be added to drinks, salads or as a garnish on many meals. Mint is often used in sweets, biscuits or cookies along with chocolate. The leaves of the mint are used for their flavour, either fresh or dried. The flavour is carried in oil in the leaves, and the very strongly flavoured oil can be extracted and stored for later use.
Mint is an easy plant to grow. It prefers a lightly shaded spot with good, moist soil but will grow almost anywhere under almost any conditions. It grows a vigorous root system that can spread very fast. Mint is best grown in a pot so it doesn't invade the rest of the garden. You can grow new mint plants by taking a cutting of a mint runner. Just digging down a little at the edge of a clump of mint should loosen up a runner that already has roots, and can be clipped off and used to grow a new plant.
Mistletoe is a name for a group of unrelated plants that all grow the same way - by being partly parasitic on another plant. This means they grow partly inside another plant, using it as a source of nutrition. Mistletoes can also generate some of their own food from the sun like other plants.
Mistletoe is often used as a Christmas decoration. It is a tradition that any male and female who meet under the mistletoe must kiss.
Mis forMorning glory
Scientific name: family: Convolvulaceae
Morning glories are the common name given to members of a large family of climbing plants. Morning glories have flowers in shades of purple, ranging from a deep violet down to white.
Morning glories get their name because their flowers open in the early morning, and then close up. In some countries, morning glories have been declared an invasive weed.
Scientific name: division: bryophyta
Mosses are tiny plants, usually around a centimeter tall. They grow in damp, shady places in clumps, so they often form large green mats.
Mosses don't have flowers or seeds. Instead, they grow spores just like mushrooms and ferns do.
The picture is taken very close up of some moss that is barely 1cm tall. You can clearly see the spore pods sticking up from the moss.
Scientific name: genus: morus
Mulberries are a small deciduous tree that likes temperate to tropical climates. Most varieties have black fruit that is red when it is underripe, but some have white fruit that is green when it isn't ripe yet.
Mulberries can be eaten fresh or used to make jam or pies. Black mulberries are the only plant that the silkworm eats.
Mushrooms are a type of fungus, and are not a plant. They come in a variety of sizes and colours. Some mushrooms are edible, but others are poisonous - poisonous mushrooms are often called toadstools. The top part of a mushroom is called the cap and the stem at the bottom is called the stalk.
Mushrooms reproduce in a similar way to ferns. They grow spores in gills under the cap, which gradually opens from a ball to a disc as the mushroom matures. Some mushrooms release their spores in an explosive puff. Spores look like fine black dust.
Scientific name: sinapis hirta and brassica juncea
There are several different kinds of mustard plant. They are in the same family as canola, turnips and cabbages. A field of mustard flowering looks very much like a field of canola flowering.
Mustard is grown mainly for its seeds, although the leaves can be eaten too. Mustard seeds are ground up and mixed with vinegar and sometimes other spices to make the mustard you can buy in shops. Depending on the type of mustard used, mustard paste can be very sharp or very mild. Sometimes mustard, called wholegrain mustard, is made from the whole seeds of the mustard plant and a little oil instead of crushing the seeds to a paste.