White thyme

Thymus zygis, the Spanish thyme, is a small aromatic dwarf shrub of the family Lamiaceae growing 10 to 30 cm tall, woody at the base with slender, much-branched, ascending stems. The tiny, narrow, linear leaves are inrolled at the margins, greyish-green and dotted with aromatic oil glands, often with a fringe of hairs at the base. The small two-lipped flowers, white to pale pink, are clustered into compact, interrupted, head-like spikes at the stem tips, blooming in late spring and summer. The whole plant is strongly fragrant. Native to the Iberian Peninsula and parts of North Africa, Spanish thyme grows on dry, sunny, stony and calcareous slopes, scrub and open pine woodland. It is one of the principal commercial sources of thyme essential oil, rich in the phenols thymol and carvacrol.