Lippia carviodora Meikle

Aromatic much branched dioecious shrub 0.5–1.5 m. tall; branchlets striate, at first pale with peeling bark, later grey or brownish, pubescent but eventually ± glabrous, the youngest parts densely covered with minute pale glands; older stems dark grey, strongly ribbed; leaf-blades ovate, elliptic-oblong or almost round, 0.7–3.5(–4.8) cm. long, 0.4–2.2(–3.8) cm. wide, rounded at the apex, truncate, cuneate or subcordate at the base, closely crenate or obtusely serrate, often slightly bullate, adpressed pubescent and sparsely glandular above, densely grey-puberulous and with numerous small glands beneath; petiole 0.4–1(–2.2) cm. long.. Inflorescences solitary in the axils, ± 12-flowered spikes, ± 5 mm. long, ± 7 mm. wide.. Male: peduncles 1–3 mm. long, white-tomentose; bracts green, linear-lanceolate to elliptic, 3–4 mm. long, 1–2 mm. wide, pubescent, acuminate; calyx membranous, 1 mm. long and wide, white-pubescent, divided into 2 oblong or emarginate lobes; corolla white, sometimes with a yellow centre; tube 3–3.5(–4) mm. long, pubescent outside at least above; lobes 1.2–1.8 mm. long; ovary rudimentary; style up to 2 mm. long.. Female: peduncles 4–6(–10) mm. long; bracts broadly ovate to semi-circular, 4–7 mm. long, 5–10 mm. wide, densely glandular, accrescent in fruit to 0.8–1.2 cm. long, 1.1–1.5 cm. wide, pubescent, reticulately veined, acute, cordate at the base, forming hop-like infructescences 2 cm. long, 1.5 cm. wide; calyx lobed as in ♂, enlarging and covering the fruit, membranous, 1–2 mm. long, 1–1.5 mm. wide; corolla ± as in ♂ with the tube 1.7–2.6 mm. long; stamens rudimentary; ovary subglobose, ± 1 mm. long, 2-locular with style 2–3 mm. long.. Fruit compressed-globose, ± 3 mm. wide included in the tomentose calyx and crowned by the withered corolla, dividing into 2 brownish pyrenes.

It is a tropical plant. In Kenya it grows in grassland and rocky ground between 500-1,150 m altitude.

The leaves are dried and crushed and boiled to make tea.

Plants can be grown from seeds.