Description: Perennial shrubs; branches 4-angular, becoming terete and woody basally; hairs branched.
Leaves sessile, decussate, pinnatifid to entire.
Inflorescence dense, compact, thyrse-like, with overlapping bracts ± covering the sessile 3-flowered cymes; bracts many-veined; apex of inflorescence terminated by large, often pale purple bracts. Calyx shortly 4–6-lobed; lobes ± equal, except upper lobe continued into a broad terminal appendage. Corolla not 2-lipped but slightly zygomorphic, with 3 lower lobes slightly shorter than upper lobes. Stamens 4, fertile; anthers with 2 loculi fertile; loculi scarcely divergent.
Mericarps 1-keeled.
Distribution and occurrence: World: c. 28 species, mainly Mediterranean region extending to NEast Africa & to India. Australia: 2 species (naturalized), N.S.W., Vic., S.A., W.A.
Text by B. J. Conn
Taxon concept:
| One species in NSW: Lavandula stoechas |
|
