Sideritis leucantha

Sideritis leucantha is a small, woolly, aromatic perennial subshrub of the family Lamiaceae, endemic to south-eastern Spain (especially Murcia, Alicante and adjacent provinces), where it grows on dry calcareous slopes, rocky scrub, and degraded matorral. The plant forms a low, compact, much-branched cushion 20–50 cm tall, with woody bases and ascending herbaceous flowering stems densely clothed in a tomentum of branched white hairs, giving the whole plant a silvery-grey appearance. The leaves are opposite, sessile or short-petioled, linear-oblong to narrowly oblanceolate, 8–25 mm long and 2–6 mm wide, entire or with a few small teeth near the apex, and densely woolly on both surfaces. The inflorescence is an elongated, narrow, interrupted terminal spike of whorled verticillasters; each whorl has a pair of leafy bracts and several small flowers, with a tubular, ribbed, woolly calyx and a small white to pale yellowish bilabiate corolla 6–10 mm long. Stamens are four, didynamous. The fruit splits into four small nutlets. The aromatic foliage is gathered for use as an infusion known locally as 'rabo de gato'.