Giggling Midnight Lemint

There is one plant that makes everyone feel slightly bit uncomfortable to walk around at night. Let's imagine for a moment:

You're walking down a long street home - you just want to walk a bit and not be stuck in a stuffy box for a while. The street lamps emit this nice soft sleepy glow, the air is calm and nicely cold and you see the shop windows turn their lights one by one and soon you've passed them, reaching beyond the edge of daily buzz. You step on the side path. Walk a bit more until the last street lamps' lights can't reach you anymore. It gets completely dark. Only the starry sky above. You just need to go through that small bunch of trees and you'll be home.  All of a sudden the idea seems bad and instead of running you barely step in the tree line.  One step. Two steps... three...
And then inevitably you hear it. The laughter. So high-pitched and gentle at first. Another step. It gets louder. It turns into a repeating sea of voices. Giggling at you. Seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. 

Should you get over the fear of the giggle and get back there with a flashlight to look for the source you'll find the Giggling Midnight Lemint framing the path through the trees, its branches swaying even without the wind's help and creating the human-like noise. For such a wrong-first-impression plant, the Lemint is actually quite useful!

Additional Information

Uses, Products & Exploitation

The Midnight Giggling Lemint can be used completely once obtained - but when one is harvesting they always need to make sure they have enough of it as just one plant's worth can just start a nice buzz.

First - the fruits of the shrub can be eaten raw, their peels can be grinded into powder and used as spice to lighter meats - birds or fish, there are some rabbit meat recipes that use it too. When cooked with it, the meal gets nicely zesty and gains natural saltiness - not too much but just enough to push the best of the meat's taste to optimal amounts. Juiced through a juicer and having some ice added to it, the Lemint is a favorite drink for a hot summer's day - it has all the deliciousness and refreshing punch of a mojito only without the actual alcoholic content.

The leaves can help with stinging bugs' damage wherever on the body it is - just a single leaf lightly rubbed on the spot helps prevent the swelling (or significantly reduce its time), stop the stinging and itchy feeling and should the person be allergic and not know it - the leaf rubbing can actually significantly slow down the progressing of the allergic reaction and if a few leaves are used with the additional help of some pressure around the spot - the venom can be completely taken out.

The branches, when made into a small bunch and left on a counter or table (or generally any spot) where a lot of ants, mosquitoes or other bugs gather - they'd repel the insects away. If one makes a wreath or bracelets of the branches and wears them no mosquito will ever bug them.

The trunk is pretty small and stocky but it can - as everything else - be used in more than one thing. If it's used in its full size, cut a small top part for a lid and given a coat of its own sap on the bottom (outside, not inside), it immediately makes a natural cooler for drinks up to a 2l bottle's size. Because of the wide crown of branches and the naturally cooling and calming effects of the "mint" part of it, the temperature on the inside of it tends to dance between 5oC and 13oC depending if it stays overnight or just around with the drink.

Ground and put in with some water and honey, the bark of the Giggling Lemint makes for an innovative chewing gum that starts off sweet, and even a touch bitter and then slowly transitions to a salty marshmallow feel.

The roots can be eaten just like carrots can be, and used in salads or as a healthy replacements of fries; they can be made into a tea - by simply chopping them into thin circles & then - dried or not - added to a mug of water & steeped for 10-15 minutes for a refreshing and empowering energy.; they can also - in their dried form - be used as a pencil eraser. & if the entire shrub is burned & then the ashes get compressed together & wrapped in (a piece of the bark is a classic version) - you get a completely natural pencil.

And last but not least - the buds & blossoms of late December, when the Giggling Lemint gets especially giggly and causes most people to not get out of home at night - they are extremely aromatic mixing in the night air hints of almost beach air, a bakery of the sweetest of goods and a slight bitter touch of a lemon peel. They can be gathered and used for creating one's own "perfume" (really smelly water) by gathering them & soaking them, in a bottle with sprayer attachment/top, in icy water, a bit of rose oil and shaken well after leaving it so stay in a cool room, in laying position, for two weeks.

Biological Traits

The Midnight Giggling Lemint is a plant that freaks people out with its peculiarities despite being extremely useful and healthy for everyone. It's a small shrub - roughly 60cm tall, with a very wide crown of very bendy branches laying wide open in a crown low to the ground. The leaves on the branches do closely resemble mint leaves but more triangular and thin-tipped. The crown's width can reach from 1,5m to 2,3m.

Scientific Name

Cocktail Plants

Where to find it:

Around the planet the Lemint can be found in colder and dimmer valleys, in fairly rocky regions and in some hidden places in deserts. In and around towns it can be found in abandoned places, in graveyards and near bodies of water - like rocky shores near beaches hidden by trees and elevated dunes. /sandy zones.