Common Calamint - Clinopodium ascendens

Rather smaller than some other members of this family, the leaves are rarely more than 4 cm long. A little branched plant with flowers on short stalks in whorls up the stem. Flowers pale pink to white with darker purple spots. There are 4 stamens and one style which is tipped by 2 unequal stigmas (found just under the top lip). The corolla is 10 to 16mm long. The lower lip of corolla is 3-lobed, the lowest lobe is also sometimes notched.

Hedge banks, road verges, rough scrubby grassland and rocky outcrops, usually on dry calcareous soils. It may occur as a relic of cultivation.

Flowering July to September.

Perennial. 

Occasional but fairly widespread in areas of England and Wales with calcareous soils.

Rare in Leicestershire and Rutland. It was not recorded in the 1979 Flora survey of Leicestershire.