199 



N. Ord. LABIATE. 

 Tribe Ocymoidece. 



Genus Lavandula,* Linn. B. & H., Gen., ii, p. 1179 Species 

 20, inhabitants of the Mediterranean district and S. W 

 Asia. 



199. Lavandula vera, DO., Fl. Franc., 8pp., p. 398 (1815). 



Lavender. 



Syn.L. Spica, var. a, Linn. L. vulgaris, var. a, Lam. L. officinajjs, 

 Cliaix. L. pyrenaica, DC. L. angustifolia, Hayne. 



Figures. Hayne, viii, t. 37; JSTees, t. 178; Berg & Sch., t. 26 b; Nees, 

 Gen. Fl. Gerin. ; Reich., Ic. Fl. Germ., xviii, t. 26, fig. 1. 



Description. A shrub of 1 to 3 feet high (or somewhat taller in 

 gardens), with a short but irregular, crooked, much branched stem 

 covered with yellowish- grey bark which comes off in flakes, and 

 very numerous, erect, straight, broom-like, slender, bluntly 

 quadrangular branches, finely pubescent with stellate hairs. 

 Leaves opposite, entire, sessile, linear, blunt, when young white 

 with a dense tomentum oi stellate hairs on both surfaces and the 

 margins strongly revolute, when full-grown over 1 inch long, 

 green, pulverulous with scattered hairs above, smooth or very 

 finely downy beneath, the margins slightly revolute. Flowers 

 very shortly stalked, 3 5 together in little opposite cymes in the 

 axils of ovate, acuminate, brown, scarious bracts, and thus forming 

 dense few-flowered whorls 4 10 in number, crowded at the 

 extremity of long naked branches in short blunt spikes, the lowest 

 whorl often separated by a long internode from the rest. Calyx 

 ovoid-oblong, tubular, somewhat contracted at the mouth, with a 

 single, tongue- like ovate tooth at the back, the rest of the margin 

 almost straight and truncate, 13-nerved, densely covered with a 

 close tomentum of blue stellate hairs and minute glands. Corolla 

 tubular, wider above, about twice the length of the calyx, 2-lipped, 



* Lavandula, or Lavendula, apparently a name of the middle ages, indicating 

 the use of the plant in baths (lavare, to wash). 



