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T H Y M U S Acinos.
Bafil 'Thyme,
D ID T N A M I A Gymnofpermia.
G en. Char. Calyx two-lipped, its orifice clofed with
hairs.
Spec. Char. Flowers on fimple fiower-ftalks, about
fix in a whorl. Stem attending, branched. Leaves
acute, ferrated. Calyx gibbous at the bafe.
S yn. Thymus Acinos. Linn. Sp. PI. 826. Hudf. FI.
An. 263. With. Bot. Arr. 6a4. ed. 3. v. 3. 537.
Relh. Cant. 235. Sibth. Ox. 189. Curt. Lond. fafc. 1,
t. 43. Dickf. H. Sicc.fafc. 11. 8.
Acinos multis. Rail Syn. 238.
F o u n d in dry hilly fields, more efpecially on a chalky foil,
common about Dartford and other parts of Kent, and not rare
in Norfolk, flowering in July and Auguft.
Root annual, compofed of a tuft of fmall fibres. Stems
branched, fpreading in every direction, but the upper parts are
eredl. Leaves on fhort footftalks, ovate, varying to roundifh or
oblong, acute, more or lefs deeply and copioufly ferrated, veiny,
hairy, as indeed is the whole herb. Ray juftly obferves that the
leaves are fometimes quite entire; very frequently they have
only a fingle notch on each fide. The upper ones taper very
much at the bafe. Flowers about 6 in a whorl, each on a foot-
ftalk various in length. Calyx fwelling at the bafe on the lower
fide, deeply furrowed, the prominent ribs fringed with briftly
hairs; upper lip eredt, in 3 broadilh nearly equal fegments ;
lower lip projedling, in 2 narrow {harp ones. The orifice is
fringed internally with white hairs, which pointing inwards
completely clofe it when the corolla is fallen, but thefe hairs are
equally evident in Meliffa. Tube of the corolla dilated upwards;
upper lip notched; the lower in three blunt fegments, the middle
one obcordate, marked at the bafe with white, and a fpot or
two of darker purple than the reft of the flower.
This plant is aromatic, though fometimes very flightly fo.
The fwelling at the bafe of the calyx, obferved by Mr. Curtis,
is to be found alfo in T . alpinus, though not fo confiderable.