Lavandula stoechas L.
French lavender
Small, densely branched shrub, with stellate tomentum, strongly aromatic. Lvs 0.8-3 cm long, sessile, revolute, grey, linear-lanceolate or linear, (linear lvs commonly forming axillary fascicles subtended by a larger linear-lanceolate lf). Peduncle c. = spike. Spike 1.5-3 cm long (excluding plume of sterile apical bracts), composed of very densely packed verticels of fls. Fertile bracts 5-6 mm long, rhombic-cordate, green or brownish; sterile bracts 1-2 cm long, obovate or spathulate, mauve. Calyx 4-7 mm long, tubular, tomentose outside; teeth acute; appendage broad and ± reniform. Corolla 5-8 mm long; tube > calyx; upper tube and lobes dark purple; lobes 1-1.5 mm long, broader than long, subequal. Nutlets c. 2 mm long, broad-oblong, mucilaginous when wet.
S.: Kaiteriteri (Nelson), Birdlings Flat (Canterbury), Lake Wanaka (C. Otago).
Macaronesia, Mediterranean 1940
Paths, gravel and shingle drives, roadsides and similar habitats around gardens.
FL Sep-Dec.
Allan (1940) recorded L. stoechas as "a somewhat persistent escape"; it seeds prolifically and germinates freely. It is a fairly common ornamental plant, particularly in E. and C. areas of the South Id, where its greater tolerance of frost makes it generally a more suitable plant to grow than L. dentata. The wild, and most cultivated plants in N.Z., belong to subsp. stoechas from Spain eastwards to Greece. The oil of French lavender or Roman lavender has been valued there since Classical times, but is not extracted commercially in N.Z.
