This Labiateae is quite common along mountain trails, always found growing on tiny earth patches on rocks and boulders but also on soil at the base of large rocks, here the plants are taller and bush like. The flowers are indeed tiny having a width of 2mm circa. The are very similar in size to flowers of Verbena officinalis. They give of a very pleasant odor similar to a mint. These examples were found growing at an elevation of 750 m. Height of the plants growing on the practically barren rocks, varies between 20cm - 35 cm. Average diameter of the stalks approx. 2 mm. The stalks are very woody and difficult to break. Photographs made 7th september.
Thanks Andrey, I believe you have hit the nail on the head. You mentioned once that you possess printed material containing many many keys. Nevertheless, I think you have a very extensive knowledge of botany. I possess the so called Italian botanist's bible, comprising three large volumes of descriptions and keys for every known wild plant growing in Italy. It is called "Flora D'Italia and compiled and authored by Sandro Pignatti. Notwithstanding, Inever really seem able to come up with the correct answer.
The same with me. The main problem with working with a key is that the person who composed the key was able to see and compare all alternative species. We, users of the key, especially at the beginning of our experience, have to work with a single plant ang only guess what the alternative species are. I was able to resolve some species only after I saw most of the listed plants. For some plant families and genera, the keys are easy. For others, they are notoriously difficult. For such keys, especially if I have to go over the key again and again, I copy it into my own file, add information about species geography (this allows me to skip the species which are not expected in my area) and add pictures showing the described features. Some of the pictures are mine, but most are from the internet. This takes some time of course. But once it is done, going through the key becomes very fast. It saves lots of time afterwards. Nothing works better as a good picture of the plant. In most cases, I do not need to read the key at all, just look at the picture. By the way, making such illustrated key by a single person is only possible for a small local area. For a contry-wide key, this would be a good project for a large community of people, like it was done with Wikipedia. Just an idea...
