Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Plectranthus ciliatus
Common name
Purple-leaved plectranthus
Family
Lamiaceae
Where found
Garden escape. Sydney area, Blue Mountains, and north. Rarely elsewhere.
Notes
Introduced perennial herb or shrub to about 0.6 m high, fleshy. Can form dense mats. Stems 4-angled, densely sticky hairy with long maroon-purple hairs, short glandular hairs, and orange stalkless glands. Leaves aromatic when rubbed, opposite each other, 3.5–8 cm long, 30–55 mm wide, thin-textured, smooth to thickish, wrinkled, sparsely to moderately hairy, the hairs mostly restricted to the veins on lower surface, densely covered with honey-coloured stalkless glands on lower surface, margins shallowly scalloped, with 8–14 pairs of teeth, tips pointed to blunt. Flowers whitish, speckled with purple on the inner surface of the lips, 12–15 mm long, tubular, the tube slightly curved, 2-lipped, the lower lip entire; the upper lip 3- or 4-lobed. Flowers in elongated clusters. Flowering: throughout the year.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Plectranthus~ciliatus (accessed 1 February, 2021)
This identification key and fact sheets are available as a free mobile application:
