What is catnip?

Answer 1

What is catnip, anyway? Is it a drug?
catnip is a perennial herb belonging to the mint family Labiatae. Catnip is known in scientific nomenclature as "Nepeta cataria". The plant is a weed-like mint that is now native in North America and Canada after being introduced from its native Mediterranean soil.

How does catnip work?
The active ingredient in catnip is called Nepetalactone. The response to this chemical is mediated through the olfactory system (vomeronasal organ) that cats have a special receptor for.

Answer 2

Catnip, which plants' technical name is nepeta cataria, is a derivitive of the mint family. It is a regular flower that can be grown in most gardens during the summer (and indoors during the winter too!). The blooms are usually a purplish-blue, although they can be a variety of colors...white, blue, pink or soft purple.

The property of the catnip that makes some cats spazz out is 'nepetalcatone', which is a terpene (basically a component of any essential oil).

Catnip does not usually affect those cats it is destined to affect until they are approximately 6 months old, as the spazzy reaction is stemmed from the olfactory epithelium (a really specific part of their nose) which is fully formed by approximately 6 months of age.

Catnip can be used for humans as well... most people think I'm nuts when I tell them this, but it is well proven that catnip has been used for medicinal purposes. For example: If you have a headache and can't find a tylenol or some type of pain reliever, and you have a cat that has catnip.... place about 1 teaspoon of catnip in a cup and pour boiling water in the cup with the catnip. Let it sit for a minute or so, then drink the catnip tea. Your headache will go within a half hour or so. Any plant that is from the mint family will do this - which is why peppermint tea is so good for a headache. Mint, or catnip - doesn't matter - either will work fine.

There's a link below for anyone that wants to know way more than you could ever possibly want to know about catnip.

Cheers!

Answer 3

Catnip is a mint, and has the same effect on most cats (but not all cats) as chocolate has on a human. You can tell that your kitten is ready to spay or neuter when they start to react to catnip. For some reason, it doesn't affect them until sexual maturity. (Which comes earlier in hotter climates like Las Vegas.)

Answer 4

It is a natural herb. Cats go crazy for it. It makes them hyperactive. I've had cats all my life and we sprinkled catnip in the floor and rubbed it on the cats themselves. They went nuts for it. I would tell anyone who has a cat too get catnip. F.Y.I. some cats do not respond to catnip.

Answer 5

Webster defines it as "aromatic mint relished by cats"..

Our cat and most of them do, roll in it as if in ectasy -and heard that it affects their brain in some way. Incredible as it sounds, some cats can't stand it. We had dozens on the farm over the years and it grew wild and many of them wanted nothing to do with it. I harvested batches of it and dried them in the attic (the catnip,not the cats-ho)-and my Bambi loved it,never grew tired of it.

Answer 6

My cats act funny when they have catnip.

They roll all around in it.

Cats, for some reson they (the cats) really like it.

Answer 7

catnip is when a cat sleeps for a short time....or is that a catnap.???

Answer 8

It is an herb related to mint, and it is like weed for cats.

Answer 9

Its a types of grass that cats like, it makes them feel good, kinda of like how chocolate makes us feel.

Answer 10

Something that excites cats. It is a cat's extasy or viagra.