Thymus serpyllum
Thyme (Thymus serpyllum ), illustration
The sand - thyme (Thymus serpyllum ) is a plant from the mint family ( Lamiaceae). There are two known subspecies.
Features
The sand - Thyme is reached an evergreen subshrub bodenbedeckender ( Chamaephyt ), the growth heights of 2 to 10 inches. The branches are always around hairy. The leaves are linear to narrowly elliptic or obovate, 1-3 mm wide and short -stalked or sessile. At the flower bunches they are hardly different in size and shape. The uppermost pair of lateral nerves usually loses, it unites not to an edge nerve. At the base of the leaves are ciliated, the leaf blade is rarely hairy. Their lateral nerves come out dull at the bottom.
The hermaphrodite flowers are zygomorphic and fünfzählig. The upper calyx teeth broadly triangular and about as long as wide at the base.
The flowering period extends from July to September.
The chromosome number is n = 12
Occurrence
The sand - thyme occurs on sandy dry grasslands, in dry pine forests and on silicate rock corridors in the cool temperate to Central, Eastern and Northern Europe. The plant avoids lime.
Use
The sand - thyme is scattered to rarely used as an ornamental plant in rock gardens, borders and natural gardens, sandy areas in heather gardens. There are some varieties.
The dried plant ( wild thyme, lat Serpylli herba ) is used as officinal drug application. As ingredients terpenes carvacrol and thymol were found. Due to this, the drug is usually prepared as an infusion used against catarrh of the upper respiratory tract.
Sand Thyme is also a relatively good bee pasture. On a passed with it area of one hectare a honey yield of up to 149 kg can result per flowering season.