异叶元宝草 yi ye yuan bao cao

Herbs perennial. Stems numerous, subterranean base slender, flexuous, whitish, glabrous, with ovate-lanceolate scalelike leaves; aboveground part purplish red, 12-35 cm tall, suberect, sometimes branched from base, densely lanate. Basal stem leaves long petiolate, blade margin entire; upper leaf blades longer, ovate-rhombic, base cuneate, gray, minutely tomentose especially on veins, veins indistinct. Verticillasters 2- or 4-flowered; floral leaves with broad, short to obsolete petiole, blade largest, 1.5-4 × 1.5-4 cm, ± crowded into a rosette, broadly rhombic to cuneate-flabellate, margin few crenulate to subentire, apex rounded; bracts ca. 7 mm. Calyx campanulate, 1.5-2 × ca. 0.8 cm, slightly enlarged after anthesis, densely appressed lanate-tomentose outside; teeth ca. 7 mm, apex spinescent. Corolla purple, 3-4 cm, ± lanate outside, tube 1.5-2 cm, 3-4 mm wide; upper lip ca. 1.5 cm, oblong-ovate, apex obtuse or emarginate; lower lip longer, middle lobe 8-10 × ca. 6 mm, lateral lobes ovate or oblong, apex emarginate. Anthers glabrous or subglabrous. Nutlets unknown. Fl. Jul-Aug.

Hills; ca. 3300 m. Xinjiang (Wuqia Xian) [Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan].