On Friday, September 13, 2002 at 6:56:51 PM UTC-5, Sandy wrote:
Last summer I bought a couple of plants from the farmers' market that
the farmer claimed were lavender. One didn't survive the winter (zone
6, against a south-facing wall) the other is now a 2.5 ft tall bushy
plant. It hasn't bloomed. I have a suspicion that the plant is not
lavender, but is in fact, rosemary. It is very like rosemary that
I've seen before. I've never grown lavender, so am not sure exactly
what it should be like. I think that they are both in the mint
family, so I can't tell from obvious clues such as square stems. I
believe that lavender leaves are scented and about the same shape as
rosemary leaves.

Does anyone have any ideas of characteristics that might be
diagnositic?

Are there keys to cultivated plants that anyone can recommend? (My
limited experience is that keys only refer to wild plants.)

Thanks!!!!

Sandy

all this information is so interesting.....My situation was that I bought 3 herb plants at Walmart. The 2 mint ones I could definitely taste and smell the difference. But....since I had never bought rosemary before I picked up a plant that was way behind the front ones which had a sign that they were Rosemary! Okay....simple, I wanted to grow some to use as Skewers for nice meals. When I got home I took the tiny ID tag out to see how to care for this little gem....Uhoh....It says Lavender??? LAVENDER! What the heck do I do with this? That is when I had to go online and try to see what WAS the difference. With the kind effort of somone actually posting a picture of both in their liitle pots I now know the tag was misplaced into my cute little Rosemary and it definitely has a stringent taste as well. So thanks to you out threre who are patient enough to help some of us a difficult time!