Tree germander
Teucrium fruticans
Family · Lamiaceae · Irritating
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The silvery shrub with lilac-blue flowers found in half the southern garden hedges and growing wild in limestone scrub. It shows from afar by the whiteness of its foliage, which looks frosted.
Scrubland · Walls and rocks · Town and roadside · Montado
Also known asshrubby germander, silver germander
How to tell it
Opposite oval leaves, dark green above and covered in pure white felt beneath. Young branches entirely white. Lilac-blue flowers with no upper lip, as in all germanders, and stamens protruding well out.
What it is confused with
Cat thyme germander
Teucrium capitatum
Size and flower: this is a shrub over a metre with large lilac-blue flowers; cat thyme germander is a low cushion with cream-coloured flower heads.
Open sheet →What it is for
Ornamental and hedging, and a bitter plant of traditional use. The same note as the other germanders applies: the genus has compounds linked to liver injury with prolonged use.
With documented traditional uses. Not a therapeutic indication and not a dose.