Desert lavender

Condea emoryi, the desert lavender (formerly Hyptis emoryi), is a large multi-stemmed aromatic shrub in the mint family Lamiaceae reaching 2.5 to 4 meters tall in optimal sites. The opposite leaves are oval, 5 to 8 centimeters long, with serrated margins and a whitish gray-green hairy surface that helps reduce water loss in arid environments. Small violet-blue two-lipped flowers up to about 2.5 centimeters long are produced in dense clusters in the leaf axils almost year-round in response to rainfall and are a major early-spring honeybee resource in southwestern North American deserts. The species is evergreen or cold-deciduous depending on location and grows in dry washes and on rocky slopes up to about 1,000 meters in the Sonoran, Mojave and Colorado deserts of Arizona, Nevada, California, Sonora and Baja California, typically in association with creosote bush, palo verde and desert ironwood.