Prostanthera scutellarioides

Prostanthera scutellarioides is a species of flowering plant that is endemic to New South Wales. It is an erect, or low-lying, faintly aromatic shrub with linear leaves and pale to deep mauve flowers arranged in leaf axils.

Description

Prostanthera scutellarioides is an erect or low-lying, faintly aromatic shrub that typically grows to a height of and has ridged branches. The leaves are linear, long and wide gradually tapering to a petiole up to long. The flowers are arranged in leaf axils with bracteoles about long at the base. The sepals are long forming a tube long with two lobes, the upper lobe long. The petals are pale to deep mauve and long. Flowering mainly occurs from spring to early summer.

Taxonomy

This mintbush was first formally described in 1810 by Robert [Brown (botanist, born 1773)|Robert Brown] who gave it the name Chiloides scutellarioides in Prodromus Florae Novae Hollandiae et Insulae [Van Diemen]. In 1895, John Isaac Briquet changed the name to Prostanthera scutellarioides, publishing the change in Die Natürlichen Pflanzenfamilien.

Distribution and habitat

Prostanthera scutellarioides grows in woodland and forest on the coast and tablelands of New South Wales north from the Windsor district.