Plants of South Eastern New South Wales

Prostanthera violacea

Flowering stems. Photographer Don Wood, Princes Highway, west of Sussex Inlet

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

Common name

Violet mint-bush

Family

Lamiaceae

Where found

Forest, gullies, and near rivers. Coast and ranges.

Notes

Shrub to 2 m high. Branches moderately to densely covered with stiff spreading hairs and glandular hairs. The whole plant strongly aromatic. Leaves opposite each other, 0.2–0.6 cm long, 2–5.5 mm wide; upper surface mid-green, lower surface paler, surfaces sparsely to moderately covered with stiff spreading hairs (especially on the midvein on the lower surface), and more or less stalkless glands, margins entire to scalloped, and curved down, tips blunt to rounded. Flowers mauve or bluish, often white at the tips of the lobes, 7–8 mm long, with a bell-shaped tube, 2-lipped, 5-lobed. Calyx 2-lobed. Flowers single at the base of paired leaves, forming leafy elongated clusters. Flowering: spring.

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