Vern.: Mastiari

I.C. Hedge & A. Paton

Perennial, tufted, suffruticose herb with a thick woody rootstock. Stems 7-30 cm, ascending or procumbent-ascending, round-quadrangular, with short, crisped, antrorse, eglandular hairs below, longer patent glandular and eglandular hairs above. Leaves linear, thick-textured, 6-28 mm x 1-5 mm, entire, revolute, cuneate, acute, with clusters of younger leaves in leaf axils; adaxial surface with short, adpressed, eglandular hairs, abaxial indumentum denser with numerous sessile glands. Petiole 1-3 mm. Inflorescence 4-sided but appearing secund when pressed, lax, terminal or lateral; flowers in the axils of ovate to elliptic, 3-7 x 2-3 mm, bracts which are entire, cuneate, acute or obtuse, thin-textured, glandular, ciliate-pilose, and cucullate. Pedicels 1-4 mm, erect, flattened. Calyx 1.5-2 mm, with a small, sometimes purple, scutellum in flower, enlarging in fruit to 3-4.5 mm with 2.5-3 mm high scutellum. Corolla 14-22 mm, pinkish mauve often with yellow markings, erect or erect-spreading, glandular or eglandular-pilose; tube 8-16 mm. Nutlets c. 1.5 x 1 mm, blackish, densely covered with adpressed white hairs.

Fl. Per.: May-July.

Type: [India] Kumaon, [Wall. Cat. 2137. 1829] R. Blinkworth (E!, K).

Distribution: E. Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, NW India.

Not to be confused with any other of our species on account of the entire linear leaves, usually with clusters of young leaves in their ails, and pinkish flowers. Although pressed specimens give the impression that the inflorescence is composed of secund flowers, it is in fact 4-sided and the nutlets have the characteristic indumentum of other species of the four-sided group (i.e. species 8-16).