26 ENGLISH BOTANY. 



? Scb-F5pecies I.— Thymus eu-Serpyllum. 



Plate MXLIII. * 



Billot, Fl. Gall, et Germ. Exsicc. No. 828. 



T. Serpyllum, Fries, Nov. Fl. Suec. ed. ii. p. 165. Bah. Man. Brit. Bot. ed. v. p. 256. 



T. Serpyllum, var. a. IIoolc. & Am. Brit. Fl. ed. viii. p. 326. 



Stems weak, procumbent, rooting, much branched, with the barren 

 shoots lateral and terminal, the latter elongate, rooting; stem of the 

 preceding year continued as a barren shoot or dying off. Leaves oblong- 

 oblanceolate or oval-oblanceolate, gradually attenuated into the petiole. 

 Flowering shoots all ( ?) lateral, erect, or ascending, short. Flowers 

 capitate, or rarely with 1 whorl beneath the terminal head. Stem 

 usually pubescent all round. 



On banks, pastures, heaths, and on rocks. Common, especially in 

 mountainous districts; generally distributed. Rare in the immediate 

 vicinity of London. 



England, Scotland, Ireland. Perennial. Summer and early Autuum. 



Rootstock woody. Stems woody, wiry, prostrate, creeping, producing 

 short barren branches and ascending flowering shoots ; the apex con- 

 tinuing to grow as a barren shoot in the succeeding year or dying at 

 the apex. Leaves ^ to ^ inch long, usually ciliated with long white hairs, 

 midrib thick, prominent beneath, as are also the lateral veins, which 

 are usually 2 on each side. Flowering stems 1 to 3 inches high, ter- 

 minated by a dense head of flowers. Pedicels more or less hispid 

 Avith white hairs. Calyx generally purple, with white hairs ; the throat 

 in fruit closed by a dense tuft of them. Corolla scarcely \ inch long, 

 rosy purple, the u])per lip quadrate-orbicular, deeply notched ; lower lip 

 slightly longer. Plant varying mucii in hairiness, sometimes, especially 

 in dry chalky places, quite white with hairs, and at other times the leaves 

 quite glabrous, excej)t a fcAV haii's on the margins at the base. Stem 

 hairy, with short or elongated reflexed white hairs all round, or with a 

 tendency to be conflned to two strips of pubescence. 



Creeping Wild Thyme. 

 French, Thjm serpolct. German, Feld Quendel. 

 This well-known pretty sweet-scented little evergreen is abundant on all sandy or 

 calcareous pastures ; and but few of us are there who do not 



" Know a bank on which the wild thyme blows." 

 It forms thick, dense tufts when growing alone, but when mingling with other herbage 

 it runs among them, throwing out long trailing stems, which root at intervals. There 

 are two kinds of thyme cultivated in gardens for culinary purposes, the common 

 thyme and the lemon-scented thyme. Both plants arc strongly aromatic, the leaves 

 and flowers especially containing a large quantity of essential oil. Little use has been 

 made of it in medicine, but the oil is sometimes applied as a remedy in toothache. 



