![]() The whole plant is highly aromatic, producing a pleasing sweet, herbaceous and slightly balsamic fragrance. It thrives best with lots of room for it to spread its flowered stems and deep roots. ![]() At the end of spring tiny flowers blossom in pairs or singles under the leaves, with the colour flowers varying from white or pale pink through to purplish.Īll varieties of thyme dislike an excess of moisture, and prefer to grow in dry, stony soil – very much the same conditions preferred by lavender. linalool is a hardy perennial herbaceous shrub which grows to a height of 25 cms (10 ins), with small, oval or oblong leaves which are green in spring, turning grey in the dry summer. This of course makes it quite rare, and therefore the essential oil is more expensive than the more common white thyme oil. linalool is only cultivated in a few areas of France, usually at a height of 1,200 metres or more. Physical descriptionĬommon thyme was originally native to Spain and the Mediterranean, and has now spread throughout the world being cultivated for the production of essential oil in many countries. However, in this article we are specifically looking at the much less common, but more versatile linalool chemotype which is usually referred to as ‘sweet’ thyme essential oil. Of the five Thymus vulgaris chemotypes, the thymol type (thyme white) essential oil is by far the most popular. ![]() The plant will often physically look the same, but the altitude, soil or climatic conditions will bring about a significant change in the oil that the plant produces. A chemotype is a natural variation that occurs within a species which produces a variation in the plants chemical constituents. Within the species Thymus vulgaris, there are then several different chemotypes including thymol, linalool, geraniol, thuyanol and a-terpinyl acetate. The less aromatic Thymus serpyllum which is sometimes called ‘mother of thyme’ and known in France as Serpolet, is a close relation of Thymus vulgaris, but is not the same species. The species of thyme used for the production of essential oil is Thymus vulgaris, and is believed to be an improved, cultivated form of the wild thyme which originated in the mountainous regions of Spain and Europe. The Thymus genus belongs to the Lamiaceae family and is highly complex, consisting of over 100 different species known by more than 300 common names.
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