Hyssopus Officinalis L. Common Hyssop

Stems i-i 1/2 feet high. Stock woody, with erect branches. Leaves greyish green, linear-lanceolate, entire, smooth, sessile, with glandular dots, ciliated. Spikes terminal, unilateral. Calyx with 15 nerves and triangular teeth, acute. Corolla-tube equalling the calyx. Corolla deep blue, upper lip erect, spreading, emarginate; lower lip 3-lobed. Stamens 4. Nutlets trigonous, ovoid.

Stony places and hot rocks in sub-alpine regions; local. July, August.

Distribution

Tessin and Valais, Savoy, Dauphiny, Southern Europe, Western Asia, Morocco.

Hyssopus Montanus Jord

Flowers smaller, dark blue. Plant entirely glabrous, bright green. Leaves linear, obtuse.

Dry hills; rare. August, September.

Distribution

Hills in Hautes-Alpes, and mountains of Dauphiny, Southern Russia.

Lavandula L. Lavender

About 20 species inhabiting the Mediterranean region, Western Asia, and India. Bitter and aromatic herbs, used medicinally, as stimulants and as a perfume.

Lavandula Spica L. (L. Vera Dc)

An under-shrub 1-2 feet high, greyish green with tomentum, with woody stem rising to about a foot above the ground. Branches simple, naked for 6 or 8 inches to the top, and bearing a terminal spike of bluish flowers in false-whorls. Leaves linear or linear-oblong, obtuse, rolled in at the margins. Upper lip of corolla bifid; lower lip trifid, with oval, obtuse lobes. Stony hillsides and dry mountains in the south. June to August.

Distribution

Sub-spontaneous at Neuveville and Vully only in Switzerland. Native in the French Jura, Dauphiny, Savoy, Provence, Cevennes, Pyrenees, Corsica, Sardinia, Spain, Sicily, Italy, Dalmatia, Algeria.

In abundance near the roadside below Lanslebourg, in the valley of the Arc, at about 3000 feet; the road itself is thickly strewn with cut spikes of Lavender in August, for a lavender-water factory is there.

Lavandula Latifolia VILL. (L. Spica L. Part)

This is perhaps only a variety with broader leaves, and rather smaller flowers, which are pale violet.

Dry hills in Dauphiny and elsewhere in Southern France, Spain, Balearic Isles, Italy, Dalmatia, Algeria, and Tunis.