Plantae > Tracheophyta > Magnoliopsida > Lamiales > Lamiaceae > Thymus > Thymus vulgaris

Thymus vulgaris (garden thyme)

Synonyms: Origanum thymus (homotypic); Thymus collinus (heterotypic)

Wikipedia Abstract

Thymus vulgaris (common thyme, German thyme, garden thyme or just thyme) is a species of flowering plant in the mint family Lamiaceae, native to southern Europe from the western Mediterranean to southern Italy. Growing to 15–30 cm (6–12 in) tall by 40 cm (16 in) wide, it is a bushy, woody-based evergreen subshrub with small, highly aromatic, grey-green leaves and clusters of purple or pink flowers in early summer.
View Wikipedia Record: Thymus vulgaris

Infraspecies

Thymus vulgaris aestivalis
Thymus vulgaris aestivus
Thymus vulgaris mansanetianus
Thymus vulgaris var. prostrata
Thymus vulgaris var. vulgaris
Thymus vulgaris vulgaris

Attributes

Dispersal Mode [3]  Autochory, Hydrochory
Edible [1]  May be edible. See the Plants For A Future link below for details.
Flower Type [1]  Hermaphrodite
Hazards [1]  A comment has been made in one report on medicinal uses that the plant should be used with caution; No explanation was given. It quite possibly refers to overuse of the essential oil. All essential oils, since they are so concentrated, can be harmful in large doses;
Leaf Type [1]  Evergreen
Lifespan [2]  Perennial
Pollinators [1]  Bees, Flies, Lepidoptera
Scent [1]  The bruised leaves are very aromatic.
Structure [1]  Shrub
Usage [1]  An essential oil from the leaves is frequently used in perfumery, soaps, toothpastes, mouthwashes, medicinally etc; It has fungicidal properties; The leaves are dried and used in pot-pourri; The plant makes an attractive ground cover for a sunny position; Plants are best spaced about 30cm apart each way; The dried flowers are used to repel moths from clothing;
Height [1]  8 inches (0.2 m)
Width [1]  12 inches (0.3 m)
View Plants For A Future Record : Thymus vulgaris

Protected Areas

Name IUCN Category Area acres Location Species Website Climate Land Use
Bath and Bradford-on-Avon Bats 265 England, United Kingdom  
Carmarthen Bay and Estuaries/ Bae Caerfyrddin ac Aberoedd 163340 Wales, United Kingdom
Great Orme`s Head/ Pen y Gogarth 748 Wales, United Kingdom  
Luberon Regional Nature Park V 406572 France  
Mendip Limestone Grasslands 1032 England, United Kingdom

Predators

External References

USDA Plant Profile

NatureServe Explorer

Citations

Attributes / relations provided by
♦ 1Plants For A Future licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
♦ 2USDA Plants Database, U. S. Department of Agriculture
♦ 3Paula S, Arianoutsou M, Kazanis D, Tavsanoglu Ç, Lloret F, Buhk C, Ojeda F, Luna B, Moreno JM, Rodrigo A, Espelta JM, Palacio S, Fernández-Santos B, Fernandes PM, and Pausas JG. 2009. Fire-related traits for plant species of the Mediterranean Basin. Ecology 90: 1420.
Paula S. & Pausas J.G. 2013. BROT: a plant trait database for Mediterranean Basin species. Version 2013.06.
♦ 4Biological Records Centre Database of Insects and their Food Plants
♦ 5Ben-Dov, Y., Miller, D.R. & Gibson, G.A.P. ScaleNet 4 November 2009
♦ 6New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Plant-SyNZ™ database
♦ 7Jorrit H. Poelen, James D. Simons and Chris J. Mungall. (2014). Global Biotic Interactions: An open infrastructure to share and analyze species-interaction datasets. Ecological Informatics.
Abstract provided by DBpedia licensed under a Creative Commons License
Species taxanomy provided by GBIF Secretariat (2022). GBIF Backbone Taxonomy. Checklist dataset https://doi.org/10.15468/39omei accessed via GBIF.org on 2023-06-13; License: CC BY 4.0