Thyme-leaved Savory

Appearance

The dwarf shrub is noted for its dark-green leaves, and grows to a height of 20–50 cm., bearing pink to purple flowers which blossom between late March and late May to early June.

The leaves of the aromatic plant Satureja thymbra have numerous glandular trichomes of two morphologically distinct types: glandular hairs and glandular scales. The leaves are opposite, entire and smooth. The flowers grow in whorls, and range from pink to purple. Its fruit pods are schizocarps. Satureja thymbra has a fuscous-brown bark, with many erect young shoots, somewhat tetragonal, gland-dotted and pubescent with short downy white hairs.

Its leaves are sessile, generally extending in condensed clusters of inflorescence, consisting of a pair of sessile cymes arranged around an axis and equally spaced, with numerous lanceolate bracts measuring about 5 mm long and 2 mm wide.

Habitat

The semi-shrub grows mainly in Mediterranean woodlands and scrubland, adapting well to higher elevations, but also seen on rocky limestone gullies as an undergrowth, and alongside dirt roads. In Israel, the plant is commonly found in the Mount Carmel region, south of Haifa, as well as in the mountainous district of Upper Galilee, in Samaria and in the Judean mountains, thriving in areas where the soils are mainly terra rossa and hard limestone, but also in chalk. The plant is rarely found along the coastal plains, or in the Jordan valley.