What exactly is this stuff that makes (some) cats lose control, enjoying every second of it? There are several answers.

Catnip is:

• An herb related to mint. One of its other names is catmint. Like most herbs, it can be grown in your garden fairly easily. Keeping it growing there can be harder, once the local cats discover it. Some of them, that is.

• Not a high for all cats. Estimates vary,  but anywhere from 10% to 30% of cats don’t react to catnip at all. One of our cats, for example, will sniff at it a little, then lose interest. The other seems almost afraid of the stuff. If I didn’t know better, I’d think the first cat was just being polite and the second had a friend back at the shelter who’d had a bad trip.

• Less important to cats than other things. Staying dry, for example. I found this out one time I was wandering the neighborhood in the pouring rain, looking for a missing cat, with a bag of catnip in my hand. On a block where nearly every household has an outdoor cat, I didn’t attract a single one.

• A source of the compound nepetalactone. This is what produces the “catnip effect”; we humans still don’t know how or why. But researchers have isolated nepetalactone and found another use for it . . .

• A possible base for natural insect repellant. Though cats vary in their reactions to nepetalactone, whole species of insects seem to hate it. The USDA reports experiments where nepetalactone has killed termites and driven away ladybugs and some kinds of cockroaches, flies, termites and mosquitoes.

So, there’s a lot more to catnip than stuffing for cat toys. It’s complex, unpredictable, and more than a little mysterious.