Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Prostanthera scutellarioides

Flowers and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT.

Flowering stem. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer Murray Fagg, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT.

Flowering branches. Australian Plant Image Index, photographer K Thaler, Australian National Botanic Gardens, Canberra, ACT

Common name

A Mint-bush

Family

Lamiaceae

Where found

Dry forest and woodland. Mainly Sydney area.

Notes

Shrub to 2.5 m high or sprawling. Branches longitudinally ridged, moderately covered with short more or less appressed hairs, at least on/or between the ridges, moderately to sparsely glandular. The whole plant faintly aromatic. Leaves opposite each other, 0.6–2.5 cm long, 0.5–2 mm wide, light green, hairless (a few hairs on the base of the midrib of the lower surface), moderately covered with more or less stalkless glands, margins entire, and curved to rolled down, tips blunt or with a small abrupt point. Flowers pale to deep mauve, often with a purple or bluish tinge, 7–8 mm long, with a bell-shaped tube, 2-lipped, the upper lip notched to 2-lobed, the lower lip 3-lobed. Calyx 2-lobed. Flowers single at the base of paired leaves, in leafy clusters. Flowering: mainly spring to early summer.

PlantNET description:  http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Prostanthera~scutellarioides (accessed 3 February, 2021)