Meehania cordata, also known as Meehan's Mint or Creeping Mint, is a perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 plant of the genus

Genus

In biology, a genus is a low-level taxonomic rank used in the biological classification of living and fossil organisms, which is an example of definition by genus and differentia...

 Meehania, within the family Lamiaceae

Lamiaceae

The mints, taxonomically known as Lamiaceae or Labiatae, are a family of flowering plants. They have traditionally been considered closely related to Verbenaceae, but in the 1990s, phylogenetic studies suggested that many genera classified in Verbenaceae belong instead in Lamiaceae...

 found in moist shady banks west of Pennsylvania to Illinois, Tennessee, and North Carolina around the month of June.

Description

Meehania, which was named by Nathaniel Lord Britton

Nathaniel Lord Britton

Nathaniel Lord Britton was an American botanist and taxonomist who founded the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx, New York. Britton was born in New Dorp in Staten Island, New York...

 for the late Thomas Meehan

Thomas Meehan

Thomas Meehan , was a noted British-born nurseryman, botanist and author. He worked as a Kew gardener in 1846–1848, and thereafter he moved to Germantown in Philadelphia...

, Philadelphian botanist, is a Dicot perennial plant with calyx rather obliquely 5-toothed, 15nerved. Corolla ample, expanded at the throat; the upper lip flattish or concave, 2-lobed, the lower 3-cleft, the middle lobe largest. Stamens 4, ascending, the lower pair shorter; anther-cells parallel. -Low stoloniferous herb, with a pale purplish flowers.

Meehania cordata, which is the only species of the genus Meehania and named by the English botanist Thomas Nuttall

Thomas Nuttall

Thomas Nuttall was an English botanist and zoologist, who lived and worked in America from 1808 until 1841....

, are low, with slender runners, hairy; leaves broadly heart-shaped, crenate, petioled, the floral shorter than the calyx; whorls few-flowered, at the summit of short ascending stems; corolla hairy inside, 2-3.5 cm. long; stamens shorter than the upper lip. .
Distribution=

It is found mostly in eastern North America. In the states of

• Illinois
• Kentucky
• North Carolina
• Ohio
• Pennsylvania
• Tennessee
• Virginia
• West Virginia

Gardening=
If you are looking for a novel groundcover, Meehan’s mint is the perfect choice. This deciduous herbaceous perennial groundcover spreads nicely in part shade and moist well-drained to average soils with foliage reaching only 1”-2” tall. In late spring it produces attractive lavender flowers with dark spots on upright stems 3”-4” tall above the foliage. Meehan’s mint spreads slowly, but is perfect for the summer garden when other plants have stopped flowering. This gem is an excellent companion to use with a wide variety of plants including Scutellaria serrata, Mitchella repens

Mitchella repens

Mitchella repens , or Partridge Berry, or Squaw Vine, is the best known plant in the genus Mitchella.It is a creeping prostrate herbaceous woody shrub, occurring in North America and Japan, and belonging to the madder family ....

, Aquilegia canadensis, Carex plantaginea, Phlox stolonifera

Phlox stolonifera

Phlox stolonifera is a herbaceous perennial plant spreading by stolons, native to woodland in the Appalachian Mountains from Pennsylvania south to northern Georgia....

, Fothergilla gardenii, and Calycanthus floridus just to mention a few.
Threatened and Endangered Information=
This plant is listed by the U.S. federal government or a state.

• Pennsylvania:

heart-leafed meehania: Endangered

• Tennessee:

heartleaf meehania: Threatened