Thymus vulgarisL.

Common ThymeEnglish ThymeGarden ThymeThymegarden thyme

WFO wfo-0000324951 Accepted WFO 2026-06 8 photographs CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Josep Gesti
fig. a Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / 2022-05-01 / obs. 192955290
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Josep Gesti
fig. b Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 190645283
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Jacqueline Jeanne
fig. c Jacqueline Jeanne, CC0 1.0 / obs. 190560078
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Josep Gesti
fig. d Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 188103490
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Tim Johnson
fig. e Tim Johnson, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 188709206
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by castieler
fig. f castieler, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 187292127
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by Ben Costamagna
fig. g Ben Costamagna, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 182861203
Thymus vulgaris, photographed by David Delon
fig. h David Delon, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 178830393

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 4 botanical countries

Regions where Thymus vulgaris is native: Baleares, France, Italy, Spain FranceItalySpain Baleares
Native distribution of Thymus vulgaris, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows. Regions too small to draw at this scale are marked with a dot.
RegionTDWG codeContinent
Baleares BAL EUROPE
France FRA
Italy ITA
Spain SPA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Also published as 36 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

  • Origanum aestivum (Reut. ex Willk.) Kuntze
  • Origanum micromeriodes (Rouy) Kuntze
  • Origanum thymus Kuntze
  • Origanum valentinum (Rouy) Kuntze
  • Origanum webbianum (Rouy) Kuntze
  • Thymus aestivalis Kit.
  • Thymus aestivus Reut. ex Willk.
  • Thymus aestivus var. barrelieri (Rouy) Nyman
  • Thymus baeticus var. prostratus Boiss. ex Lacaita
  • Thymus barrelieri Rouy
  • Thymus barrelieri var. longiflorus Rouy
  • Thymus barrelieri var. longifolius Rouy
  • Thymus chinensis K.Koch
  • Thymus collinus Salisb.
  • Thymus ilerdensis González ex Costa
  • Thymus micromerioides Rouy
  • Thymus micromeroides Rouy
  • Thymus reuteri var. longiflorus (Rouy) Willk.
  • Thymus sublaxus Rouy
  • Thymus valentinus Rouy
  • Thymus vulgaris subsp. micromerioides (Rouy) Cáp
  • Thymus vulgaris subsp. palearensis (O.Bolòs & Vigo) O.Bolòs & Vigo
  • Thymus vulgaris unranked variegatus Abbey
  • Thymus vulgaris var. aestivus (Reut. ex Willk.) Font Quer

and 12 more.

Sourcesevery claim on this page

  1. World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
  2. iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
  3. Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
  4. Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.