Fernleaf lavender

Description

Lavandula pinnata (sometimes called fernleaf lavender) is a species of flowering plant in the mint family, Lamiaceae, native to southern Madeira and the Canary Islands (Lanzarote). It was first described in 1780. Lavandula pinnata is a small shrub with opposite, simple, pinnately dissected leaves, and square stems. The flowers are purple, borne in summer. As of 4 February 2018, the original authorship of the name "Lavandula pinnata" varies by source. The World Checklist of Selected Plant Families attributes the name to Johan Daniel Lundmark in 1780, a view followed by The Plant List and Tropicos. GRIN Taxonomy and the African Plant Database attribute the name to the younger Carl Linnaeus (1780); the International Plant Names Index has the same attribution, but without a date, as well as noting the use of the name by Conrad Moench in 1802. The genus includes annual or short-lived herbaceous perennial plants, and shrub-like perennials, subshrubs or small shrubs. Leaf shape is diverse across the genus. They are simple in some commonly cultivated species; in other species, they are pinnately toothed, or pinnate, sometimes multiple pinnate and dissected. In most species, the leaves are covered in fine hairs or indumentum, which normally contain essential oils. Flowers are borne in whorls, held on spikes rising above the foliage, the spikes being branched in some species. Some species produce colored bracts at the tips of the inflorescences. The flowers may be blue, violet or lilac in the wild species, occasionally blackish purple or yellowish. The calyx is tubular. The corolla is also tubular, usually with five lobes (the upper lip often cleft, and the lower lip has two clefts). Lavandula (common name lavender) is a genus of 47 known species of flowering plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is native to the Old World and is found in Cape Verde and the Canary Islands, and from Europe across to northern and eastern Africa, the Mediterranean, southwest Asia to India.