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Tuesday, 21 July 2015

Clinopodium vulgare L.- Cyprus

Clinopodium vulgare, the wild basil, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae.

Description
Wild basil is a perennial rhizomatous herb with square, upright, hairy stems and opposite pairs of leaves. The leaves are hairy, ovate or lanceolate in shape, and have short or no stalks, wedge-shaped bases and bluntly-toothed margins. The inflorescence is a terminal spike consisting of several loose whorls of clusters of flowers growing in the axils of the leaves. Each flower has a short stalk, five sepals about 10 mm (0.39 in) long and five petals 12 to 15 mm (0.47 to 0.59 in) in length which are fused into a tube. The flowers are pink, violet or purple and have two lips. Each has four stamens, a long style and fused carpels

Clinopodium is a genus of flowering plants in the family Lamiaceae. It is in the tribe Mentheae of the subfamily Nepetoideae, but little else can be said with certainty about its phylogenetic position.
The genus name Clinopodium is derived from the Latin clinopodion or the Greek klinopodion. These were names for Clinopodium vulgare. The Greek klino means "a bed" and the Greek podion means "a little foot". 
Clinopodium species are used as food plants by the larvae of some Lepidoptera species including Coleophora albitarsella.
Various Clinopodium species are used as medicinal herbs. For example C. laevigatum is used in Mexico as a tea under the name "Poleo" or "yerba de Borracho" to cure hangovers, stomach aches, and liver disease.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Photos Troodos, 20/6/2015 by George Konstantinou



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