Suffruticose perennial, much branched, forming clumps up to 1 m in diameter. Stems erect to c. 50 cm, leafy, white or pale-coloured, quadrangular, pubescent to glabrous. Leaves not clustered, ovate to triangular-ovate in outline; lamina up to 20-30 x 20 mm, in degree of lobing, deeply palmate to 2 x pinnate, ultimate lobes rounded apiculate or not, with fine eglandular hairs and finely glandular punctate. Petiole up to 2 cm. Spines white, sturdy, up to 20 mm, erect-spreading. Verticillasters 4-6-flowered, distant, in upper leaf axils. Calyx 20-30 mm long, yellowish green becoming straw-coloured in fruit, glabrous or with few short eglandular hairs and scattered oil globules; tube 5-8 (-11) mm, faintly veined; lobes ± oblong, 3-7 mm broad, up to 2 x length of tube, rounded to acute at apex, shortly apiculate or not, erect-spreading. Corolla white or yellowish white, 25-30 mm; tube c. 15 mm included in calyx; upper lip ± straight, bind densely villous, bearded at margins. Thecae hairy.

Type: [Afghanistan, Koord Cabul] "In regno Cabulico, Griffith 490" (K!, G, C, W).

Distribution: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran.

Very variable in the degree of leaf division, the calyx length and the shape and length of the calyx lobes. Although all the specimens cited above would be named Lagochilus schugnanicus Knorring using Flora Iranica (150: 342. t. 306, t. 308. 1982) - Lagochilus cabulicus in the same flora being recorded from east and central Afghanistan (i.e. not in the extreme NE) - I cannot find any satisfactory characters to separate the two taxa and prefer to use the name Lagochilus cabulicus.