Lavandula stoechas L.
Eng.: Bush lavender, Spanish or French lavender. Spa.: Alhucema, cantueso, lavanda, espliego. Fre.: Lavande à toupet, lavande stéchade, lavande papillon. Ara.: Helhal, halhal, helhal el djebel, meharga, estakhudess, el khzêmê. Tam.: Amezzir, imzir, lazir, hamsdir, tizrit.
Subshrub, evergreen, hermaphrodite, up to 1 m in height, erect, ramose. Stems and older branches brown-greyish, fissured longitudinally. Young branches tetragonal, green or reddish, but appear whitish because of being covered, to a greater or lesser extent, with white hairs. Leaves (1-4 × 0.2-0.8 cm) solitary, opposite or forming fascicles, linear or oblong-lanceolate, obtuse, sessile, with margin slightly revolute, midrib very prominent on the underside, glabrescent and green-greyish on the upper side, ± villous and lighter on the underside. Inflorescence in dense terminal spikes, subtetragonal in cross section, with a tuft of petaloid bracts at the top, lighter than the flowers. The spike is actually a cluster of overlapping verticillasters, with 6-10 small flowers each. Calyx ovoid-tubular, with 5 very small teeth. Corolla purplish, purple, pinkish, blue or rarely white, ovoid-tubular, open in the shape of a star, with 2 lips and these in turn divided into 5 lobules. Fruit is very small and included in the persistent calyx tube.
Flowering:
February to June.
Fruiting:
May to August.
Habitat:
Cleared forests, thickets, on siliceous soils. From Semiarid to subhumid bioclimate, on thermomediterranean and mesomediterranean floors.
Distribution:
Mediterranean Region. In North Africa, it can become quite common. It is distributed throughout the less dry areas of the Mediterranean region, from Morocco to Tunisia, reaching the Anti-Atlas to the S.
Observations:
A closely related species to L. stoechas is L. pedunculata (Mill.) Cav., which differs from the former mainly by its long peduncles, more than 2 times the length of the inflorescence; it is represented in North Africa by the subsp. atlantica (Braun-Blanq.) Romo, endemic to Morocco, where it is common in mountainous areas from the Rif to the Anti-Atlas.
Another species with entire leaves is L. atriplicifolia Benth. (L. canescens Deflers). It differs by its inflorescences in pairs (opposite), not solitary and terminal, without apical bracts and with yellow flowers. It grows in the extreme SE of Egypt, NE Sudan and SW part of the Arabian Peninsula (Saudi and Yemen).
Conservation status:
L. stoechas is a common and widespread species. L. pedunculata is also widely distributed worldwide but with a small distribution area in North Africa. Currently, they have not been assessed at a global level in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.