Thymus vulgaris L.
culinary thyme
Small, hairy shrub to c. 30 cm high. Shoots dense, erect or suberect, densely clothed in short hairs. Lvs sessile or subsessile, 3-8 × 0.5-3 mm, elliptic but appearing linear because of revolute margins, densely hairy, with abundant oil globules, tomentose along midrib below. Fls in dense terminal heads; lower verticels often interrupted. Bracts similar to lvs, often somewhat wider, green, < to > calyx. Calyx 3-4 mm long, campanulate, green or purplish, hairy, dotted with oil globules, with tuft of white hairs in throat; teeth of upper lip ovate, not ciliate; teeth of lower lip linear-subulate, long-ciliate. Corolla 4-6 mm long, white or mauve; tube not exserted, hairy outside; upper lip with large, broad, oblong-elliptic to obovate lobes, sparsely hairy or glabrous; lower lip at right angles to upper. Stamens not or scarcely exserted; anthers purplish. Nutlets 6-8 mm diam., broad-ellipsoid to sub-spherical, dark brown.
S.: Canterbury (small populations at White Rock, Loburn, and Rangitata R.), C.
Mediterranean 1926
Otago (common to dominant on dry slopes and terraces, especially in the Alexandra area).
FL Sep-Dec.
Culinary thyme, often called wild thyme or simply thyme, was recorded in C. Otago by Cockayne in 1928. Elsewhere in N.Z., as in many countries, it is cultivated as a culinary herb.
