The catnip plant belongs to the genus Nepeta. The molecule responsible for its odd effects on cats is called nepetalactone:
Apparently catnip can repel insects in a garden, and some people have looked into whether nepetalactone works as an insect repellent.
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Doutor, eu uso essa planta com frequência, em chá. Nos por cá em Caminha, Portugal, damos-lhe o Nome de Nêveda e usualmente também, usamos quando cozemos as castanhas. No chá em meu caso faz-me dormir profundamente, o que antes não acontecia. Mesmo assim tenho receio que tenha conta. Indicações. Muito obrigado pelo que tem publicado, em nosso benefÃcio, (José Feliz).
Nepetalactone sensitivity is genetic. About 1/3 of cats are inert. Interaction is strictly by inhalation. As with all mints, essential oils are present in microscopic hollow surface hairs. The plant is odorless until touched or abraded. Big cats - mountain lions - are also susceptible.
We have never had a cat who went wild for catnip. We grow the stuff to bug garden bugs. One year I ripped out more than ten pounds of catnip and dumped it in back for garbage pickup. A neighborhood tom walked by, jumped in, and went severely weird. He ended up on his back, wiggling, tossing the stuff into the air onto his face. Amazing.
The plant is dimorphic. Under nice garden conditions it is a big bright green thin-leafed floppy weed that wilts in hot direct sunlight. Under nasty freeway merge unwatered sun blast conditions it hunkers down to a robust, short, very deep green, fleshy tiny-leaved woody thing.
Certain of my more shiftless friends in undergrad enjoyed observing the effect catnip had on their cats when administered with marijuana. I was not able to obtain conclusive data from them, possibly because they were administering marijuana to themselves at the time as well, occasionally in conjunction with ethanol.
This substance is apparently also a mosquito repellent in a big way. "Studies show" and all that; it's not just anecdotal experience, though I could give you plenty of anecdotes based on my own experience with different catnip oils used in this way.