Origanum vulgare

Plants are 20 to 60 cm tall, branched at the top and aromatic.

Leaves are egg-shaped, 1 to 4 cm long and short-stalked, with smooth or toothed edges.

Small pale pink flowers, 4 to 7 mm long, sit in the axils of purple bracts and are crowded into heads at the shoot tips.

Info Flora gives July to September as the flowering period in Switzerland.

The Czech Pladias database gives June to September as the flowering period.

In Switzerland it grows in scrub, at woodland edges and in dry meadows, from the colline to the subalpine belt.

In Rhineland-Palatinate it is described from dry and semi-dry grassland on warm, sunny, rather calcareous soils.

Pladias names honeybee, bumblebees and hoverflies as the main pollinator groups.

In a collection of bee plants at Pulawy, Poland, honeybees made up almost all insects seen visiting wild marjoram.

A BOKU Vienna plant profile notes that the lipped flowers are visited by numerous insect species during summer.

The BOKU profile recommends it mainly for natural gardens, because it spreads readily.

It is an important nectar and caterpillar food plant for many demanding and endangered butterflies, including two blue butterflies.