Plants of South Eastern New South Wales
Phyla canescens
Common name
Lippia
Family
Verbenaceae
Where found
Pastures, grasslands, roadsides, and near streams, particularly on the flood plain of the Murray–Darling Basin. Western Slopes. Occasionally Sydney area. Doubtfully naturalised in the ACT. Mostly in wetter inland habitats on clay soils
Notes
Introduced prostrate perennial herb with stems to 0.9 m long, usually forming a dense mat over the ground surface. Roots at the nodes. Flowering stems 1–11 cm long, sometimes erect. Leaves somewhat fleshy. Stems with closely appressed tiny hairs, or nearly hairless. Leaves opposite each other, 1-7.2 cm long, 2-10 mm wide, greyish-green, hairy to hairless, margins with short blunt teeth, rarely entire, tips blunt. Individual flowers usually mauve or pinkish, sometimes purple or white, with yellowish centres, 2-2.5 mm in diameter, tubular, 2-lipped, with 4 uneven lobes. Calyx lobes shorter the than calyx tube. Flowers in many-flowered rounded clusters 3-10 mm long, 5-10 mm in diameter. One cluster per pair of leaves. Flowers mostly October–April.
General Biosecurity Duty all NSW.
Phyla nodiflora var. minor in Vic.
PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Phyla~canescens (accessed 31 January, 2021)
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