密花荆芥 mi hua jing jie

Nepeta tarbagataica C. Y. Yang & B. Wang.

Plants perennial. Rhizomes with dark brown scalelike leaves. Stems 25-40 cm, ascending, 1.5-2.5 mm in diam., with sparse, curved villous hairs intermixed with minute glandular hairs especially basally, internodes to 5-6 cm, leaf axils mostly with short, sterile branchlets. Petiole 0-4 mm; leaf blade lanceolate or oblong-ovate, 1.5-3 cm × 2-10 mm, sparsely covered with short simple hairs and minute yellow glands, base truncate to rounded-truncate, margin remotely 1-4-serrate, apex acute to obtuse. Spikes ovoid to cylindric, 1.5-8 × 2.5-3 cm, with lower verticillasters widely spaced. Calyx blue-purple, 8-10 mm, villous and densely glandular puberulent on veins otherwise pubescent, throat oblique; teeth narrowly triangular, apex acuminate, anterior teeth slightly shorter, posterior teeth ca. 2/3 as long as calyx tube. Corolla blue, 1.5-1.6 cm, pubescent; tube ca. 9 mm, base ca. 1.1 mm wide, abruptly dilated into throat ca. 4 × 5 mm; upper lip ca. 3 mm; middle lobe of lower lip 3-4 × (6.5-)7-8 mm, deeply 2-lobulate; lateral lobes semicircular-triangular, 0.75-1(-1.5) × 2.3-3 mm. Nutlets dark brown, broadly ovoid, ca. 2 × 1-1.25 mm. Fl. and fr. Aug.

Stony and grassy slopes, valley thickets along rivers, sparse forests; 1400-2500 m. Xinjiang [Mongolia, Russia].