NEPETA MELISSIFOLIA

Family and Genus:- See- LABIATAE/Sect. NEPETA

Common Names:- None

Homotypic Synonyms:- Glechoma melissifolia.

Meaning:- Nepeta (L) A name used by the Roman naturalist and philosopher Pliny

for plants from Nepi, Etruria, Italy.

Melissifolia (L) With Melissa-like leaves.

General description:- Short to medium, branched, grey-woolly perennial.

Stems:-

1) 20-40 cm, suberect, sparingly branched, slightly pubescent and glandular-

puberulent.

Leaves:-

1) Cauline, 1·5-3·5 cm, petiolate, blade, triangular-ovate, cordate to truncate at the

base, coarsely crenate.

Flower:-

1) In several, usually distinctly separated verticillasters forming a lax spike, each

verticillaster with 2 pedunculate, 3-10-flowered cymes.

2) Bracts, 5-7 mm, lanceolate;

a) Bracteoles, short, linear.

3) Calyx, 8-10 mm, curved, 2-lipped, green or purplish;

a) teeth, 2-3·5 mm.

4) Corolla, purplish-blue or rarely pinkish, tube slender, curved, clearly exceeding

the calyx.

a) limb, usually with small red dots.

Fruit:-

1) Nutlets, smooth or tuberculate.

Key features:-

1) With tuberous roots.

2) Corolla, purplish-blue; tube, much exceeding the calyx.

3) Limb, usually with small red dots.

4) Outer bracteoles, shorter than the calyx.

Click here for a glossary of terms used.

Habitat:- Screes, rock ledges and rocky slopes with open dry shrubby vegetation

in ravines and gorges, generally on limestone. 0-600 m.

Distribution:- Endemic to Greece restricted to a few islands including Crete, where

it is confined to the central north and south coast and the far east with one record

from Kolymvari in the west.

Flowering time:- Late Apr to early June.

Photos by:- Jenny Neal & Steve Lenton