CLASS XIV. ORDER I.] ORIGANUM. 805 



Moot fibrous, with creeping suckers. Stem somewhat woody at the 

 base, slender, wiry, much branched and entangled, procumbent and 

 rooting, branches numerous, ascending, obtusely angular, downy, and 

 mostly of a pink colour. Leaves numerous, small, flat, elliptic ovate, 

 or linear ovate, obtuse, on a short slender footstalk, entire, the margin 

 ciliated, sometimes the whole leaf is downy, paler on the under side 

 than the upper. Injlorescence whorled flowers, mostly in a terminal 

 racemose head, with one or two distant whorls. Flowers on short hairy 

 stalks. Calyx tubular, ten ribbed, h^iry, the lower lip of two awl- 

 shaped teeth, the upper of three short broad acute ones, the mouth 

 fringed with a ring of white hairs. Corolla about as long again as the 

 calyx, varying in colour from deep rose to white, the lower lip three- 

 cleft, and variegated with darker spots, the upper notched, ovate-sub- 

 angular. Stamens spreading, as long as the corolla. 



Habitat. — Heaths and dry places ; very common. 



Perennial ; flowering from July to August. 



Wild Thyme possesses the sensible qualities of the Garden Thyme, 

 T. vulgaris, though in a less degree. It is extremely common, and 

 very variable in its appearance, and the odour which it exhales. On 

 dry exposed downs and heaths it seldom exceeds two inches in height, 

 but if it has grown in a moist and shady situation it sometimes becomes 

 twelve or eighteen inches long, and depending upon the same causes 

 it is more or less covered with pubescence. It is commonly believed 

 that sheep fed upon downs, &c., where this plant is common, gives the 

 mutton a superior flavour. It is probable, however, that the fact of the 

 mutton being superior does not depend upon the sheep feeding upon 

 the Thyme ; the superiority of the natural grass and unforced herbage, 

 which grow where the Thyme is wild, being rather the real cause. 

 Bees are extremely fond of the fragrant flowers of this plant, and the 

 honey produced where it abounds is of a fine quality and flavour. 



GENUS III. ORIGA'NUM.— Linn. Marjoram. 

 Nat. Old. Labia't^. Juss. 



Gex. Char. Flowers in angular spiked whorls, imbricated with 

 bracteas. Calyx five toothed, or obliquely cut, entire. Corolla 

 with the upper lip straight, notched, the lower trifid, tube naked. — 

 Name from o^oj, a hill, or mountain; Rud yccvog, joy ; so called 

 from the pretty spiked flowers and the agreeable perfume of these 

 plants being the joy or ornament of the hill on which they flourish. 

 1. O. vuVgare, Linn. (Fig. 926.) Common Marjoram. Stem erect, 



panicled above ; flowers in roundish crowded heads ; bracteas purple, 



longer than the calyx, without glandular dots; calyx with five acute 



teeth, the throat hairy ; leaves ovate, acute. 



5 M 



