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Harmless🍽️ Edible💊 Medicinal

🌿 Wild Thyme

Thymus serpyllum · Lamiaceae

🌳 Temperate Europe🏔️ Mountains🫒 Mediterranean
🧠 To remember it"Wild Thyme: the creeping thyme" — if it grows flat as a low mat and smells like thyme, you found it; if it grows upright as a small shrub, it's common thyme.
Wild Thyme — Thymus serpyllum

🔍 Identify it without mistakes

Small creeping thyme that carpets dry lawns and rockeries, low-growing stems forming dense mats that are highly aromatic when crushed. A low, creeping cousin of common thyme (Thymus vulgaris) which is more upright in the South, wild thyme tolerates temperate climates better and grows right up into the mountains.

  1. creeping stems, woody at the base, forming dense mats or cushions
  2. small opposite, oval, sessile leaves with a strong thyme scent when crushed
  3. pink-purple flowers in small whorls clustered at the top of upright stems
  4. stem with hairs arranged on two opposite sides only (fine key for identifying the genus Thymus)
  5. always grows flat against the ground in mats, never as an upright shrub
Size2-10 cm (mats)
FloweringMay-September
Habitatdry lawns, rockeries, dunes, heathlands, up to high altitudes in the mountains

⚠️ Not to be confused with

Common thyme (Thymus vulgaris)aucun (comestible aussi)

To tell them apart: creeping and mat-forming habit, flat non-rolled leaves, milder scent

🍽️ Eating it

Partsleaves, flowers
Seasonall year round, best when flowering (June-August)
Tastethyme-like, more delicate and less pungent than common Southern thyme

Preparation : fresh or dried leaves as a seasoning (identical to the culinary use of cultivated thyme), infusion of flowering tops

💊 Healing with it

traditionally used as an infusion for respiratory ailments (cough, cold) and as a mild digestive antiseptic, thanks to the thymol contained in its essential oil

Level of evidence : traditional use — ethnobotanical compilations (PFAF)

⚠️ pure essential oil is dermocaustic and must never be applied undiluted to the skin; avoid high doses during pregnancy

🪓 Other bushcraft uses

  • traditionally planted in dry lawns and stone walls to perfume the air when walked on — a practice still alive in some traditional gardens
Sources (2)

No entry replaces a certain identification in the field, or medical advice. When in doubt: don't eat it. If ingestion is suspected: poison control or 112/911.