Available now. The best known of the southern calamints, and the one with the loudest flowers: slender scarlet tubes an inch or more long, held out from a loose, open shrub two to three feet high, sometimes more. Native to the sandhills, flatwoods, scrub and dunes of Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Bloom is heaviest in spring and again in fall, with scattered flowers between, and in the mildest zone 8 and 9 gardens something may be open in almost any month. The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the Florida Wildflower Foundation both single scarlet calamint out as a hummingbird plant, and the fall flush lands squarely on the September migration. Few plants have been moved between genera so often: first published as a Cunila in 1825, then shuffled through Melissa, Gardoquia, Calamintha and Satureja before Kuntze settled the plant in Clinopodium in 1891. Zones 7 to 9. Semi-evergreen, thinning in a cold winter.

Scarlet calamint in the shop

Available now. A wild-found color form in yellow washed with orange, deepening toward amber, on a plant a little denser than the species and three to four feet high. 'Amber Blush' was found in Santa Rosa County, Florida, by Fred Spicer, Rick Lewandowski and Ron Miller, and introduced by Plant Delights Nursery in 2012. Our stock came to us from Rick Lewandowski, of Shangri La Botanical Gardens in Orange, Texas. In our own beds the flowers take on an orangey pink cast as the nights cool in fall; that is our observation rather than anything published, and we pass the note on as such. Hummingbirds do not appear to mind the change of color. Zones 7 to 9.

'Amber Blush' in the shop

Coming soon; waitlist open. A clear, bright yellow scarlet calamint, which is a contradiction the plant wears cheerfully. Yellow forms turn up rarely in wild populations. This one was originally shared with us by Ken Wurdak, who found the plant in Tattnall County, Georgia, in the Ohoopee dune country. We later lost our stock and got the clone back from Mike Creel, who had been given starts by us years before. That is how a great many rare plants survive: handed along, and handed back. Compared with 'Amber Blush', 'Ohoopee Yellow' is a cleaner, cooler yellow with no amber in the tone. The current crop needs a few more weeks of root growth before shipping; use the Notify Me button on the product page to hear the day the plants are ready.

Join the 'Ohoopee Yellow' waitlist

Listed; not in stock at present. A segregate of scarlet calamint from the sandhills and scrub of Seminole, Orange and Brevard counties in east-central Florida, with larger flowers and a longer calyx than the typical plant. Here the name is unsettled and we would rather say so. Alan Weakley's Flora of the Southeastern United States treats the large-flowered plants as probably warranting recognition; Kew folds them into C. coccineum. What is not in dispute is that the populations sit in the path of greater Orlando and much of the habitat is gone. Zones 8 to 9, and less forgiving of a hard winter than the species.

Large-flowered scarlet calamint in the shop

Available now, in small numbers. The quiet calamint. A low, neat, twiggy shrublet one to two feet high, with small leaves that smell frankly and sweetly of mint, and a haze of small pale pinkish-lavender flowers from late summer into fall, typically peaking in September when bees are short of options. Native from North Carolina and South Carolina through Georgia and Florida and west to Louisiana, in dry woodlands, sandhills and the thin soils at the edges of granite outcrops. Georgia savory is secure across most of the range but listed as endangered in both North Carolina and Florida, and the North Carolina threat is the loss of fire. The name is argued over: Kew and ITIS sink the species into Clinopodium carolinianum, while Weakley, NatureServe and the state heritage programs keep georgianum, as do we. Unlike most of the tribe, this one will take heavier soil and a little shade. NC State rates the plant to zone 8; Chicago Botanic Garden rates the plant to zone 6 and grows one. We would say zones 7 to 9 with confidence and colder with good drainage.

Georgia savory in the shop · More on Georgia savory's ecology

Available now, in small numbers. A chance seedling that turned up in the garden of Robert Mackintosh, of uncertain parentage, and was judged worth keeping. Our long-held account, and the one Plant Delights Nursery repeats, is that Georgia savory crossed with a neighboring false rosemary, two genera that very rarely cross; Plant Delights sells the plant under the bigeneric name ×Clinadina, which to our knowledge has not been formally published. One other nursery lists 'Desi Arnez' as C. georgianum × C. ashei, which we suspect is a mix-up with a different seedling (see C. ashei × georgianum below). By our own account Gail Barton of Flowerplace Plant Farm in Mississippi did much to make the plant known, and Richard Lowery named the plant for Desi Arnaz; the spelling got rearranged somewhere along the road. In the garden: a tidy, knee-high evergreen, fifteen to eighteen inches, narrow leaves that smell of clean peppermint at a touch, and soft pink flowers in fall. More tolerant of a wet winter than most of the group, and happy in sun to light shade. Zones 7 to 9.

'Desi Arnez' in the shop

Grown in the past; not currently offered. A small, aromatic scrub shrub of two separated homes: the central Florida scrub ridges, from roughly Marion and Volusia counties south to Highlands County, and the Ohoopee dunes of Candler and Tattnall counties in Georgia, where the plant is known from about a dozen sites. Listed as threatened in both Florida and Georgia, though not federally. Weakley notes that the Georgia plants may prove to be a separate taxon. Georgia is revising the state protected-species list this fall, so the status there may change. We would like to grow this one again.

Grown in the past; not currently offered. A small shrubby calamint of sand scrub in the Florida Panhandle, with a disjunct population in Tattnall County, Georgia. The small leaves are toothed at the tips, which is the easiest way to know the plant, and the flowers are pinkish purple. Listed as threatened by the state of Florida. An old Woodlanders catalog entry described the species as federally endangered; that was wrong, and we are glad of the chance to correct the record. Woodlanders was very likely the first nursery to put toothed savory into horticulture.

A Woodlanders introduction; not currently offered. A shrubby, aromatic, purple-flowered hybrid that appeared as a chance seedling in the garden of Pamela Harper, the garden writer, in Seaford, Virginia, and sits neatly between the two parents. Woodlanders introduced the plant. We mention the seedling here partly for the record and partly because the Seaford hybrid and 'Desi Arnez' seem to have been conflated in at least one catalog since.

Grown in the past; not currently offered. A low, spreading, semi-evergreen calamint with smaller leaves than Georgia savory and pink flowers in fall, found by Jim Rogers in west-central Georgia and once expected to be described as a new species. We cannot find that the name was ever validly published, so we give the name in quotation marks and flag the plant as undescribed rather than pretend otherwise. If you know more, we would very much like to hear.

In propagation; coming to the Prop House. The common one, and the one most gardeners should start with. A dense, low shrub one to two feet high of fine, needle-like, gray-green leaves, with pale lavender flowers spotted dark purple on the lower lip, carried from March into November and heaviest in spring. Native to the back slopes of the Gulf Coast dunes and inland sand pine scrub and dry longleaf of northwest Florida, Alabama and Mississippi. Canescens means turning white, for the fine gray down on leaves and flowers. The foliage is rich in camphor and 1,8-cineole, which is the resinous, faintly eucalyptus scent. Not listed anywhere. Kew now folds two other named species, C. brevifolia and C. puberula, into C. canescens; more on that below. Zones 7 to 9.

Gray false rosemary in the shop

A Woodlanders selection; between crops. Wild gray false rosemary varies a great deal in color and habit. 'Gray Mound' was selected here for uniformity: a dense, tidy, silver-gray cushion about fifteen to eighteen inches high that spreads gently in sand and holds shape without shearing. The best of the group for formal use, along an entry walk or repeated through a gravel garden. One honest caution for coastal gardeners: wild plants shrug off salt wind, but nursery-grown stock is soft and wants a season of shelter before facing an open beach. We also once offered an unnamed compact form of the species, since retired in favor of 'Gray Mound'.

'Gray Mound' in the shop

Listed; not in stock at present. Years ago Woodlanders introduced two low selections collected along the Styx River in southern Alabama, called 'Low Gray' and 'Low Green'. We hope both clones survive in cultivation somewhere; we no longer have them. On a return visit we gathered cuttings from distinctly low-growing plants in sandy woodland near the same river, and what appears to be the same plant grows some miles east in Blackwater River State Forest in northwest Florida. The Styx River plant is lower and more spreading than C. canescens of the open coast and may represent an undescribed species. A ground-hugging mat with short gray-green needles and small purple flowers.

The Styx River conradina in the shop

Grown in the past; not currently offered. A smooth, fine-textured, purple-flowered Conradina from an inland site in westernmost Florida that did not fit C. canescens, which is a coastal plant and grayer. We never settled a name. Recorded here because a guide to what we have grown should not quietly leave the puzzles out.

Available now to South Carolina addresses only. The outlier: the only Conradina that never reached Florida, and the only one hardy to zone 5. Cumberland rosemary grows on flood-scoured sand and cobble bars along rivers of the Cumberland Plateau, in the Big South Fork, Emory and Caney Fork watersheds of Tennessee and in McCreary County, Kentucky. The plant needs the river to flood and then dry: floods clear the competition and carry off stem pieces that root downstream. Cumberland rosemary is also the only triploid in the genus, with very low seed germination, so most spread is clonal. A low evergreen mat six to twelve inches high and two to three feet across, needle leaves that smell uncannily of culinary rosemary, and lavender flowers with darker spotting in May and June. Federally listed as threatened since 1991, which means the plant cannot be sold across state lines. Full sun, gravel or sand, no fertilizer. Zones 5 to 9.

Cumberland rosemary in the shop (South Carolina only) · Why we can only sell this one in South Carolina

In propagation; Prop House, fall 2027. A small to medium shrub of old dunes and deep sand scrub at scattered sites along Florida's Atlantic coast, with gray-green, rosemary-like leaves and the largest flowers in the genus, bluish lavender and showy. Listed as threatened by the state of Florida. Not federally listed; an older Woodlanders page said otherwise and has been flagged for correction.

Large-flowered rosemary in the Prop House

Reference plant; not for sale. The false rosemary that breaks the needle rule, with small oval leaves, a larger frame than most of the genus, and large pale lavender flowers. In September 1990 Bob McCartney of Woodlanders found the plant in the Etonia scrub near Etonia Creek in Putnam County, Florida, and the species was described by Robert Kral and McCartney in the journal Sida the following year. Listed as federally endangered in 1993, and known from three populations within a few miles of one another. A newer species, Conradina cygniflora, was described in 2009 from nearby Dunns Creek State Park in the same county; Florida lists that one as endangered, and we have never grown the plant.

Reference plant; not for sale. A smooth, green-needled false rosemary with pale, nearly white flowers, from deep sand on the bluffs and ravines near the Apalachicola River in northwest Florida. Federally endangered since 1993. Woodlanders grew this plant in the years when the shrubby southern mints were barely known in gardens, and we keep the record here for that history.

Reference plant; not for sale. A low, wiry shrub with dense, short, grayish needles and small pale lavender to white flowers, known from a few sites in two central Florida counties. Federally endangered since 1993. Here the taxonomy and the law disagree in plain sight: Kew and ITIS sink the species into C. canescens, while the Fish and Wildlife Service, citing genetic work by Edwards and colleagues in 2008, keeps short-leaved rosemary separate and listed. For the purposes of a nursery, the Service is the one that matters.

Available now, in quarts. The only species in the genus. A low evergreen subshrub one to two feet high, crowded with stiff, needle-like leaves that smell sharply and cleanly of mint, and from late winter into spring topped with dense, cone-shaped clusters of small two-lipped flowers in lavender to pinkish purple, spotted darker on the lower lip, with a few flowers scattered through the rest of the year. The late-winter bloom is the point: bees find wild pennyroyal when almost nothing else is open. Nearly endemic to Florida, in scrub, scrubby and pine flatwoods, sandhills and dry prairies on acid sand, and reaching only extreme southeastern Georgia, where the state's natural heritage program knows just two populations, neither confirmed in several decades.

The names make a small history of Southern botany. George Bentham published the plant as Satureja rigida in 1834, crediting the name to William Bartram; Rafinesque moved the plant into a new genus, Piloblephis, in 1838; Kuntze tried Clinopodium rigidum in 1891; and John Kunkel Small called the plant Pycnothymus rigidus in 1903, which is the name our old catalog used for years. The genus name refers to the soft hairs on the sepals, and rigida to the stiff branches. Our current stock came to us through Jonas Meyer, who sourced the plants from Ryan Schiller's scrub mint collection.

Florida references rate wild pennyroyal to zone 9. Our plants come through Aiken winters, in zone 8, without complaint, and we rate the plant to zone 8 on that experience; gardeners at the cold edge of zone 8 should give the warmest, driest spot they have. Full sun, acid sand, no wet feet. The Georgia program describes the plant as short-lived, so expect a few very good years rather than a permanent fixture. And one honest caution about the name: the pennyroyal oil known to be dangerous comes from other plants, European pennyroyal and American pennyroyal, but the chemistry of wild pennyroyal has not been well studied. We grow and sell the plant as an ornamental, and we do not recommend eating the leaves or making tea from them, especially during pregnancy.

Wild pennyroyal in the shop

Grown in the past; not currently offered. A small aromatic subshrub, a foot or two high, with narrow minty leaves and, from October through December, bright pink flowers striped and spotted darker pink. Described only in 1993, and found in the wild within a range of about thirty miles in Brevard County, Florida, near Titusville, on old sand ridges. Listed as endangered by the state of Florida; some authorities suspect a hybrid origin and write the name as Dicerandra ×thinicola. Part of the protected habitat is now the Dicerandra Scrub Sanctuary, named for the genus.

Grown in the past; federally endangered, not for sale. The spotless one, as the epithet says: purplish pink flowers without the markings the rest of the genus carries. Lakela's mint grows only in white and yellow sand scrub in Indian River and St. Lucie counties on Florida's Atlantic coast, in openings where fire or wind has cleared the canopy, and was listed as federally endangered in 1985 as development took most of that coastline. A second variety, var. savannarum, was described in 2001. Woodlanders grew this plant in earlier years; we keep the record here for that history.

No. These are woody shrubs that stay where you plant them. Cumberland rosemary will root along the stems into a slowly widening mat, which is a pleasure rather than a problem.

For a season or two, yes, in a gritty cactus-style mix in a terracotta pot, in full sun, watered only when dry. Long term they do better in the ground, where roots can run deep for water.

A light shear after the main flush of flowers, or in late winter before growth begins, keeps the shrubs dense. Never cut hard into bare old wood.

Cumberland rosemary to zone 5. Georgia savory has been grown in zone 6. Most of the rest are safest in zones 7 to 9. Wild pennyroyal overwinters for us in zone 8. Winter wet kills more of them at the northern edge than cold does.

No. The pennyroyal of European herbals is Mentha pulegium, and the American plant sold as pennyroyal is usually Hedeoma pulegioides; oil from those plants is highly toxic and has caused serious poisonings. Wild pennyroyal is a different genus whose chemistry has not been well studied. We sell the plant as an ornamental and do not recommend teas or other internal use, especially during pregnancy.

Because the plant is federally listed as threatened, and the Endangered Species Act prohibits selling a listed plant across state lines, even a nursery-grown one. We can sell and deliver within South Carolina only.