Pennyroyal (Mentha pulegium)
Key Details
| Taxonomic Groups: | Vascular plant > flowering plant > Herbaceous plant |
| Red List Status: | Endangered (Not Relevant) [EN(nr)] |
| D5 Status: | Included in the baseline Red List Index for England (Wilkins, Wilson & Brown, 2022) |
| Section 41 Status: | (not listed) |
| Taxa Included Synonym: | (none) |
| UKSI Recommended Name: | Mentha pulegium |
| UKSI Recommended Authority: | L. |
| UKSI Recommended Qualifier: | (none specified) |
| Red List Citation: | in Stroh et al., 2014 |
| Notes on taxonomy/listing: | (none) |
Criteria
| Question 1: | Does species need conservation or recovery in England? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | EN in GB, CR in England. Work should focus on sites with putative native forms (typically prostrate) |
| Question 2: | Does recovery/ conservation depend on species-specific actions? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Targeted management needed to ensure all populations deemed native survive & flourish |
| Question 3: | At a landscape scale, would the species benefit from untargeted habitat management to increase habitat mosaics, structural diversity, or particular successional stages? |
| Response: | Yes |
| Justification: | Maintenance or reinstatement of traditional management (through a long continuity of heavy grazing). |
Species Assessment
| Current step on the Species Recovery Curve (SRC): | 5. Remedial action identified |
| Recovery potential/expectation: | Low - Policy conflict (detail in comments) |
| National Monitoring Resource: | Opportunistic - insufficient |
| Species Comments: | Mentha pulegium survives in mildly acid grasslands on commons / village greens & coastal pastures as a native species. It survives best where a long continuity of heavy, traditional year-round grazing maintains short turf & heavy winter rutting / poaching. |
Key Actions
Key Action 1
Proposed Action: Monitor all populations on a 1-3 year basis, recording numbers of plants & assessing condition of sites /suitability for M. pulegium
Action targets: 5. Remedial action identified
Action type: Targeted monitoring
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: All native populations
Comments: England's population of M. pulegium thought to be made up of both native & non-native populations. Close monitoring of native localities important as species very vulnerable to loss due to competition from coarser vegetation, but may not survive as seed in seed bank.
Key Action 2
Proposed Action: Maintain or restore heavy levels of traditional grazing, with associated disturbance (around pools/hollows/gateways), ensuring that some winter poaching / rutting takes place, at native sites present / seen since 2000.
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Habitat management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites: Native commonland & coastal sites
Comments: Where plants are deemed to be declining, rapid action is required to ensure that the species is not lost. The prostrate creeping stems are highly vulnerable to out-competition by coarser vegetation, & possibly the species produces little viable seed in Britain.
Key Action 3
Proposed Action: Support traditional pastoralism, permitting / encouraging high concentrations of extensive grazing (including heavy levels of winter poaching) & encouraging natural dynamism across extensive areas, ensuring that village greens, drove roads etc are not excluded from restoration projects
Action targets: 6. Recovery solutions trialled
Action type: Landscape/catchment/marine management
Duration: >10 years
Scale of Implementation: National
High priority sites:
Comments: Traditional pastoral commonland grazing has been shown to be beneficial. New management aimed at restoring commonland grazing should not exclude village greens, road verges & drove roads.
Acknowledgment:
Data used on this website are adapted from Threatened species recovery actions 2025 baseline (JP065): Technical report and spreadsheet user guide (Natural England, 2025). Available here.