Perennial with creeping woody rootstock, aromatic. Stems several, prostrate or ascending, to c. 10 cm, purplish, with an eglandular or glandular pilose to vinous indumentum. Lowermost leaves scale-like. Cauline leaves obovate or ovate-rhombic, 5-10 mm broad, deeply incised with obtuse rounded lobes, cuneate, greyish white, pilose to villous; petiole to 8 mm, flattened. Inflorescence an ovoid densely congested terminal head, subtended by uppermost small leaves, to c. 30 mm in diameter. Bracts narrow linear to filiform, dark purplish or violet, as long as calyces to longer than flowers. Pedicels c. 1 mm or absent. Calyx c. 8 mm long, thin-textured, white-villous, obconical; throat oblique; teeth unequal, as long as tube. Corolla 15-18 mm, purple to violet -blue, lip with darker spots; upper lip deeply bind with broad rounded lobes; tube exserted from calyx. Nutlets c. 2 x 0.9 mm, ellipsoid, brown, matt, finely striated with a bilobed lateral areole.

Fl. Per.: July-August.

Type: [Himachal Pradesh?] In lapidosis mobilibus prope Kang-Rang Ghan-Ti, Jacquemont 1665 (K!, P).

Distribution: NE Afghanistan, Pamir-Alai, Pakistan, Kashmir, Lahul, Tibet, Sinkiang.

A very distinctive high alpine scree plant recorded by Hartmann (l. c.) up to an altitude of 5400 m in the Karakoram mountains. On a field-note of a specimen from Lahul in NW India is recorded the Lahulis use this plant medicinally as a universal cure"; likewise the Ladak Brown & Rothera fieldnote reads "all except roots used for liver and stomach disease".