This was the first flower that I became interested in its details. Of course, this plant would have a complicated floral anatomy, thus it was wise for me to have waited awhile before attempting to fully understand its morphologic development. As a side note: I eventually discovered that there are many species of lavender plants.
The French Lavender flower thrives in full sun and needs six to eight hours of direct sunlight daily. It does not like shade; it fact, it is shade intolerant. It likes dry locations and is a hardy plant. It also repels mosquitoes and has a pleasant scent (the honey bees certainly like it!).
It is toxic to dogs and another animals if ingested in large quantities.
French Lavender, known scientifically as Lavandula stoechas, is a fragrant (belongs to the mint family), bushy, evergreen perennial native to the Mediterranean region. This plant can be as tall as up to 78 inches (6.6 feet) tall. There are no known fossils of this plant; apparently L. sotechas evolved about 2500 years ago. Egyptians made perfumes with this plant. Today, there are about 30 to 50 species of this genus (Wikipedia, 2025).
The flowers of the French lavender show inflorescence in the form of minute blue- or white-colored flowers arranged on a spike.
Figure 2. Purple flowers at top of vertical stems.
Figure 3. View of minute flowers (and a large purple bract at the top of the stem, so as , as to attract pollinating insects).
Figure 4. Additional view of minute flowers with an ant (peeking up over the right side of this image) for scale. It was just lucky to have the ant crawl into the picture just as I snapped the shutter. I could not have planned it better.
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