Lavender

Lavandula angustifolia, English or true lavender, is an evergreen subshrub of the Lamiaceae family native to the western Mediterranean uplands, especially the limestone hills of Provence and the Pyrenees. It forms a rounded, woody-based mound 30 to 90 cm tall, with narrow, grey-green, linear leaves arranged in opposite pairs along square stems. From early to mid summer, slender flowering shoots rise above the foliage bearing terminal spikes of small, two-lipped, intensely fragrant violet-blue flowers, each subtended by a downy calyx. The whole plant is glandular and richly aromatic, releasing essential oil dominated by linalool and linalyl acetate. It thrives on sharply drained calcareous soils in full sun and is hardy to roughly minus twenty degrees Celsius.