[2] Each of its stems is square in cross section, as typical of the mint family, and somewhat gray in color.

[25] According to Plants of the World Online, the native range of catnip includes a large part of Eurasia.

Around the Mediterranean it is idetified as native in Portugal, Spain, France, Corsica, Italy, Switzerland, the former Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece.

In the East it is native to Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, European Russia, and the Caucasus.

It is native to all of Central Asia including Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kirghistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan and also extends to western Siberia.

Its native status in China is disputed as it also is in the Russian Far East, Nepal, Korea, and Japan.

[28] In North America it grows in Canada from the island of Newfoundland to British Columbia, but not in Labrador or the three northern Canadian territories.

[31] The plant terpenoid nepetalactone is the main chemical constituent of the essential oil of Nepeta cataria.

[34] The iridoid that is deposited on cats who have rubbed themselves against the plants and scratched the surfaces of catnip and silver vine (Actinidia polygama) leaves repels mosquitoes.

[35] The compound iridodial, an iridoid extracted from catnip oil, has been found to attract lacewings that eat aphids and mites.

[37][38] Oil isolated from catnip by steam distillation is a repellent against insects, in particular mosquitoes, cockroaches, and termites.

[42] Catnip has a history of use in traditional medicine for a variety of ailments such as stomach cramps, indigestion, fevers, hives, and nervous conditions.

[44] Several tests showed that leopards, cougars, servals, and lynxes often reacted strongly to catnip in a manner similar to domestic cats.

Common behaviors cats display when they sense the bruised leaves or stems of catnip are rubbing on the plant, rolling on the ground, pawing at it, licking it, and chewing it.

[50][51] The main response period after exposure is generally between 5 and 15 minutes, after which olfactory fatigue usually sets in.

A 1962 pedigree analysis of 26 cats in a Siamese breeding colony suggested that the catnip response was caused by a Mendelian-dominant gene.

A 2011 pedigree analysis of 210 cats in two breeding colonies (taking into account measurement error by repeated testing) showed no evidence for Mendelian patterns of inheritance but demonstrated heritabilities of h2 = 0.51–0.89 for catnip response behavior, indicating a polygenic liability threshold model.

[56][57] A study published in January 2021 suggests that felines are specifically attracted to the iridoids nepetalactone and nepetalactol, present in catnip and silver vine, respectively.

[59] Up to a third of cats are genetically immune to catnip effects but may respond in a similar way to other plants such as valerian (Valeriana officinalis) root and leaves, silver vine or matatabi (Actinidia polygama), and Tatarian honeysuckle (Lonicera tatarica) wood.