Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 591 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Thyme, garden thyme.

Description:
Perennial shrublets to 25 cm high, much-branched, with quadrangular branches rigid and becoming woody, more or less densely covered with short recurved simple hairs and with scattered sessile glands; leaves subpetiolate, linear, rarely linear-elliptic, 0.3-0.8 x 0.1-0.3 cm, with strongly recurved margins, densely covered with simple hairs and sessile glands.

Inflorescence a thyrse without a peduncle, with sessile cymose part-inflorescences each with few shortly pedicellate flowers subtended by a leaf-like bract as long as or longer than the flower cluster, with internodes between the lower nodes mainly elongating; sepals fused to about half their length, 13-veined, 3-4 mm long, 2-lipped, with dorsal lip scarcely 3-lobed and anterior lip deeply 2-lobed and with stiff cilia, hairy inside and outside and with sessile glands outside; corolla pink to pale-purple, 2-lipped, with anterior lip about as long as the tube, 5-6 mm long, with scattered hairs and sessile glands on outer exposed surfaces, with broadly oblong posterior lip scarcely 2-lobed, with anterior lip divided into 3 almost equal lobes; stamens inserted just below the throat of the corolla tube, with filaments glabrous; anthers with 2 cells fertile and somewhat diverging from a slightly broadened connective, exserted beyond the posterior lip; ovary on a thick disk, deeply 4-lobed, with a slender style inserted near the base, with a shortly 2-fid stigma.

mericarp oblong-obovoid, 1-1.5 mm long, without keels, with the attachment scar small, basal, smooth.

	Habit and calyx.
Image source: fig. 558F in Jessop J.P. & Toelken H.R. (Ed.) 1986. Flora of South Australia (4th edn).

Published illustration: Hegi (1927) Illustrierte Flora von Mittel-Europa 5, 4:fig. 3207.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: SE. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: unknown.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available