Lavandula lanata Boiss.

An evergreen shrub 11⁄2 to 2 ft high; young shoots and leaves covered with a whitish wool. Leaves opposite, stalkless, linear or oblanceolate, tapered at the base, rounded or blunt at the end, 1 to 2 in. long, 1⁄4 in. or less wide. Flower-spikes 1 to 2 ft high, four-angled, slender, not so woolly as the leaves, with the flowers crowded in a group (11⁄2 to 3 in. long) of whorls at the top. Flowers 1⁄3 in. long, bright violet and 1⁄8 in. wide at the mouth, downy outside. Calyx tubular, eight-ribbed, 1⁄4 in. long, downy, toothed, with one tooth much enlarged.

Native of Spain, where it was discovered by Boissier in 1837, in calcareous mountainous regions, especially on the Sierra Nevada. It is very distinct from L. angustifolia and L. latifolia in the longer, much more thickly woolly leaves, but the habit is the same and the flowers are similarly arranged at the top of a long slender stalk. Those species differ from it in the (up to) thirteen ribs of the calyx. Boissier observes that in Spain, where it flowers in July and August, it is ‘infinitely more fragrant, very much esteemed by the mountaineers for its medicinal virtues, and occupies a region more elevated than [L. latifolia]’.