LABIATE FAMILY 



387 



whorls of 5 or 6, with the calyx 2-lipped, the lower lip bulged at 

 the base, and the corolla spotted with white and darker purple. — 

 Dry places ; frequent. — Fl. July, August. Annual. 



3. C. Nepeta (Lesser Calamint). — Stems usually many, 12 — 18 

 in. high, with short, erect branches ; leaves ovate, serrate, shortly 

 stalked, pale beneath ; flowers light purple, in forked cymes ; calyx 

 with short hairs on its teeth.— Dry banks ; rare. — Fl. July, August. 

 Perennial. 



4. C. Calamintha (Common Calamint). 

 A larger, erect, bushy plant, with downy, 

 usually solitary stem; long, ascending 

 branches ; leaves on rather long stalks, 

 broadly ovate, slightly serrate, green on 

 both sides, downy; flowers light purple, 

 in forked, axillary, few-flowered cymes 

 with small pointed bracts in the forks ; 

 calyx 2-lipped, with long hairs on its 

 teeth, the teeth of the upper lip straight ; 

 lower lip of corolla with its middle lobe 

 longest. — Dry waste places ; not uncom- 

 mon. — Fl. July, August. Perennial. 



5. C. grandiflora, an allied species, 

 with larger, sharply serrate leaves and 

 large flowers with the 3 upper teeth of the 

 calyx reflexed, and the 3 lobes of the 

 lower lip of the corolla equal, occurs on 

 dry banks in Hampshire and South 

 Devon. — Fl. August— October. Peren- 

 nial. 



*6. Mel/ssa (Balm), a closely allied 

 genus, differing from Clinopbdium mainly 

 in its curved corolla-tube, is represented 

 in England only by the one species, M. 

 officinalis, a hairy plant with numerous 

 erect stems, 1 — 2 feet high ; stalked, ovate, crenate leaves, wrinkled 

 above, paler beneath ; and white flowers in shortly-stalked, one- 

 sided, axillary, few-flowered whorls. — It occurs as an escape only, 

 in the south. (Name from the Greek melissa, a bee, bees visiting 

 the flowers for honey.) — Fl. July, August. Perennial. 



7. Salvia (Sage). — Herbs or shrubs with calyx and corolla both 

 2-lipped, the latter gaping ; stamens 2, with short filaments bear- 

 ing a long versatile connective with an anther-lobe at each end 

 (distractile), the upper only usually containing pollen. (Name 



sAlvia verbenXca 

 {Clary, or Wild Sage). 



