I.C. Hedge

Annual with erect slender stems, unbranched or with a few erect-spreading branches, purplish, with very short papillose-eglandular and glandular hairs. Leaves few linear-elliptic, 10-15 x 2-4 mm, entire or with few small teeth, tapering into petiole, purplish, eglandular and glandular-papillose, obtuse or apiculate; petiole to c. 6 mm. Inflorescence of usually few crowded ovoid heads c. 10 mm in diameter, subtended by uppermost leaves. Inner bracts as long as or shorter than calyces, prominently veined, elliptic, stipitate. flowers shortly pedicellate. Calyx 3.5-5 mm, tubular, straight, purplish, with spreading eglandular hairs and glandular papillae; teeth subequal, linear, acuminate c. as long as calyx tube; throat without or with few villous hairs. Corolla pale lilac to violet c.6 mm; tube included within calyx teeth, widened at throat. Nutlets ellipsoid, c. 1.1 x 0.6 mm, pale brown with darker mottling, shiny, with a lateral basal attachment scar.

Fl. Per.: June.

Type: [S Iran] Kuh Daena, Kotschy 915b (holo. G!; iso. E!, LE).

Distribution: Iran, Afghanistan, Soviet Central Asia, Pakistan.

With some similarities to Nepeta bracteata but a slenderer plant with narrower linear-elliptic leaves and a papillose-glandular indumentum.