I.C. Hedge

Suffruticose herbs or annuals. Leaves linear to lanceolate, cuneate, entire, glandular-punctate, conduplicate at least when young. Flowers in pedunculate axillary verticillasters. Bracts linear to lanceolate. Calyx bilabiate or actinomorphic, 10-13-nerved, tubular to campanulate; throat sparsely pilose to ± glabrous. Corolla white to mauve to purplish, bilabiate; upper lip ± straight, emarginate; lower lip 3-lobed, spreading; tube straight, not annulate within. Stamens 4, included in or exserted from corolla; thecae bilocular, divergent. Stylar branches subequal. Nutlets oblong-ovoid, obtuse, often apically minutely papillose-puberulous.

In the narrow sense, Satureja contains about 30 species in Europe, the Mediterranean region and SW Asia. Our only representative, a cultivated species, is the only annual member of the genus.

Lower Taxon

• Satureja hortensis L.

Related Synonym(s):

• Satureja laxiflora C. Koch = Satureja hortensis L.