An aromatic plant with white to lavender flowers, this species is only known from southern San Diego County in California and a small portion of Baja California, occurring on chaparral or coastal sage scrub in metavolcanic soils.

[1][3] Lepechinia ganderi is a short, aromatic shrub with slender branches coated in rough hairs and resin glands.

Each flower has a base of long, pointed sepals below a white to light lavender tubular corolla.

The small, dark, hairless fruit develops attached to the sepals once the corolla falls.

[2][8] Plants of this species are typically found growing on rocky, metavolcanic, gabbroic substrates, often in habitats ranging from coastal sage scrub and chaparral to closed-cone coniferous forest, such as Tecate cypress groves,[9] and grasslands,[2] at elevations from 500 to 1060 meters.