Perennial, small, tufted, suffruticose herb, with a thick or slender creeping, woody rootstock. Stems 9-18 cm, slender, quadrangular or round-quadrangular, leafy, procumbent-ascending; indumentum of dense, short, crisped, retrorse, or also with long patent eglandular hairs, with patent glandular hairs or not on inflorescence axis. Leaves herbaceous, narrow ovate to ovate-elliptic, (5-) 8-24 x 3-11 mm, crenulate to crenate, cuneate, obtuse; nervation on abaxial surface not or scarcely raised; indumentum of sparse, adpressed, short stiff eglandular hairs mainly on veins of abaxial surfaces with sometimes numerous sessile glands. Petioles to 5 mm, leaves becoming sessile above. Inflorescence 4-sided, condensed, terminal; flowers subtended by the elliptic to broad elliptic, imbricate, 7-14 x 3-10 mm, bracts which are entire or subentire, cuneate, acute, purplish or not, cucullate, thin-textured, ciliate or pilose, with sessile glands. Pedicels 2-4 mm, slightly flattened, erect, or spreading erect. Calyx 2 mm in flower, with a small, sometimes purple, scutellum (fruiting calyces not seen); indumentum of long glandular and eglandular hairs, and sessile glands. Corolla 24-29 mm, yellow with purple hood or violet with purple and cream tinge, spreading-erect or erect; tube 19-25 mm, with short glandular and eglandular hairs, longer on the hood. Nutlets not seen.

Fl. Per.: June-August.

Syntypes: [USSR Tadzhikistan] Pamir: Bordo Ba, 3500 m, Paulsen 620 (C!); Kara Su, 3700 m, Paulsen 752 (C!).

Distribution: Pakistan, Soviet Central Asia.

Often growing in screen. Similar in habit to Scutellaria chamaedrifolia to which, (as Scutellaria teucriifolia), some of the specimens cited above had earlier been referred. Scutellaria paulsenii mainly differs in leaf characters (texture, margin and venation) and the indumentum on stems and leaves; it also appears to grow at much higher altitudes. Whether or not the C Asiatic Scutellaria oligodonta Juz. is synonymous with Scutellaria paulsenii requires a study of all available material from the Tien Shan, Pamir-Alai and Chitral/Gilgit.