Beefsteak plant
Perilla frutescens (L.) Britton
- light
- Sun–part
- water
- Medium
- tall
- 61 cm
- wide
- 27 cm
Lamiaceae
Also called Perilla mint, Beefsteak mint, Korean perilla, Perilla, Chinese basil
Formerly Ocimum frutescens, Pogostemon perilloides
When it flowers
Not known yet in the tropics: too few flowering observations to read a season from.
Read from iNaturalist photographs of it in flower. A month counts at 50% of the best month's flowering share (smoothed over three months) and 10% of its flowering count, from at least 100 flowering observations in the band.
If a child, a pet or anyone may have eaten a plant, contact a doctor or vet straight away, or call the National Poisons Information Centre (AIIMS, New Delhi) on 1800 116 117, free and open 24 hours.
Something wrong with it?About it
- Grows as
- AnnualKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Climate
- SubtropicalKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Wild in
- S. Russian Far East to PakistanKew's checklist, not yet checked
- Light
- Full sun to part shade (3 h or more)Read from NC State Extension, one source
- Height
- 30 cm to 91 cmRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Spread
- 8 cm to 46 cmRead from NC State Extension, one source
- Water
- Average: moist, well drainedRead from NC State Extension, not yet checkedOne source. Checker: NC State Extension page does not state medium: it says moist to dry soil, drought tolerant
- Flowers
- WhiteRead from NC State Extension, one source
Not known yet: coldest it survives, heat, hottest it survives.
In other languages (12)
- Chinese
- 紫蘇, 白苏, 白苏叶
- Japanese
- エゴマ(広義), 荏胡麻, エゴマ
- Korean
- 들깨, 자소엽
- Russian
- Перилла кустарниковая
- Czech
- perila křovitá
- Chinese (China)
- 紫苏
- Swedish
- bladmynta
- Danish
- bladmynte
- French
- Pérille aromatique, Pérille de Nankin
- Dutch
- Japanse munt
- Polish
- pachnotka bazyliowata
- Finnish
- veripeippi
Where this comes from
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0 (observation counts)
- Wikidata, read 2026-10-25, CC0-1.0
- Kew's checklist, read 2026-10-24, CC-BY-4.0
- NC State Extension, read 2026-10-25, fact, cited
- Wikimedia Commons, read 2026-10-25, CC BY 4.0
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY-SA
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- iNaturalist, read 2026-10-25, CC BY
- 3D model: Perilla frutescens (built for Vanagrha) by Vanagrha, own
A fact “checked by a majority of its sources” was settled by a vote of the pages it was read from, not by a person reading it; one marked “one source” rests on that page alone. Anything else not marked checked has not been checked yet. Where nothing is known, the page says so rather than guess.