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This plant is also known as ascending wild basil and basil thyme, and can be found growing on dry, calcareous soils, on roadsides, in hedges, rough grassland and rocky ground in southern areas of England and Ireland. It is a member of the Lamiaceae family and also known for its use as a medicinal herb.

The 17th century herbalist Culpeper wrote that "it is very efficacious in all afflictions of the brain" and that it "relieves convulsions and cramps, shortness of breath or choleric pains in the stomach or bowels and that cures the yellow jaundice"; and "It relieves those who have the leprosy, taken inwardly, drinking whey after it, or the green herb outwardly applied, and that it taketh away black and blue marks in the face, and maketh black scars become well coloured, if the green herb (not the dry) be boiled in wine and laid to the place or the place washed therewith."