Mediterranean wild thyme

Thymbra capitata, the Mediterranean wild thyme or conehead thyme (formerly Thymus capitatus, Coridothymus capitatus), is a low aromatic subshrub of the Lamiaceae family native to the rocky garrigue and phrygana of the eastern and central Mediterranean. It grows in dense, compact cushions twenty to forty centimetres tall, with rigid, branching, woody stems clothed in tiny, opposite, fleshy, oil-gland-dotted, dark green linear leaves about a centimetre long. In mid to late summer the flowering shoots terminate in dense, conical, head-like spikes of small two-lipped purplish-pink flowers, partly concealed by red-tinged bracts. The whole plant is intensely pungent, the essential oil dominated by carvacrol, and is the principal nectar source for some of the most prized regional honeys, including Greek and Cypriot thyme honey.