Atomic gardening is a form of mutation breeding where plants are exposed to radiation. Some of the mutations produced thereby have turned out to be useful. Typically this is gamma radiation – in which case it is a gamma garden – produced by cobalt-60.
Former Atomic Gardening Society President Muriel Howorth shows popular garden writer Beverley Nichols a two-foot-high (61 cm) peanut plant grown from an irradiated nut in her own backyard.
Peppermint is a hybrid species of mint, a cross between watermint and spearmint. Indigenous to Europe and the Middle East, the plant is now widely spread and cultivated in many regions of the world. It is occasionally found in the wild with its parent species.
Peppermint
Peppermint flowers
An 1887 illustration from Köhlers; Medicinal Plants
Peppermint grown in a pot outside a house