Flower heads and leaves. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RG & FJ Richardson, St Arnaud, Vic

Carpet. Australian Plant Image Index, photo: RG & FJ Richardson, Donald, Vic

Common Name

Lippia

Family

Verbenaceae

Notes

Introduced prostrate perennial forb with stems up to 1m long. Flowering stems sometimes erect. Leaves somewhat fleshy. Leaves opposite each other, 0.5-7cm long, 2-25mm wide, flat, hairy to hairless, margins toothed to almost entire, with blunt tips. Individual flowers small (less than 3mm across), purple or mauve to whitish pink, tubular, with 5 uneven lobes. Inflorescence many flowered, in oval-globular clusters at the bases of the leaves. One inflorescence per pair of leaves. Noxious weed in all of NSW.

Differs from Phyla nodiflora in that the leaves are greyish, and the leaf margins have short blunt teeth or almost entire. The calyx lobes of the flowers are shorter than or about the same length as the calyx tube, and the flowers are arranged in oval-globular clusters.

The description above mostly derived from Munir, A.A., (1993) A taxonomic revision of the genus Phyla Lour. (Verbenaceae) in Australia. Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens 15(2): 121-125, Fig. 3, Map 3

PlantNET description: http://plantnet.rbgsyd.nsw.gov.au/cgi-bin/NSWfl.pl?page=nswfl&lvl=sp&name=Phyla~canescens

Weeds of Australia Biosecurity Queensland Edition description: http://keyserver.lucidcentral.org/weeds/data/03030800-0b07-490a-8d04-0605030c0f01/media/Html/Phyla_canescens.htm