Subshrub, wide-spreading, aromatic, up to 1 (-15) m high. Stems much branched from a thick woody rootstock, leafy, with very short simple and adpressed dendroid-stellate eglandular hairs and some sessile oil globules. Leaves ± bipinnatisect, with linear or linear-oblong ultimate segments c. 4-7 x 2.5 cm, below with a dense indumentum of dendroid-stellate eglandular hairs and numerous sessile oil globules, sometimes sub-glabrous, petiole c. 10 mm. Inflorescence showy, large, much-branched with numerous 2-4 (-6)-flowered verticillasters, distant; bracts and bracteoles present. Pedicels c. 05 mm, spreading in flower, deflexed in fruit. Calyx ± tubular, violet, c. 4 mm long in flower, somewhat longer and broader in fruit, with a dense indumentum of long villous eglandular hairs, some short capitate glandular hairs and many sessile oil globules. Corolla violet blue, rarely white, c. 10 mm long, pilose; tube slightly exserted beyond calyx lips; upper lip apparently 4-lobed, ± reflexed; lower lip 1-lobed, entire. Stamens either clearly exserted or included, filaments often mauve. Style included or clearly exserted with a broadly bilobed stigma. Nutlets ovoid, smooth, dark brown, c. 2 x 1 mm.

Fl. Per.: (May-) June-August.

Type: [USSR, Central Asia], Balkhany mountains, Karelin s.n. (LE).

Distribution: E. Iran, Turkmenia, Afghanistan, Soviet Central Asia, Pakistan, Kashmir, Tibet.

Locally common, growing up to altitudes of over 3500 m in Kashmir. A handsome and conspicuous late-flowering shrub, variable in the degree of leaf division and a close ally of the following species. Lace (in Watt 4009) records that it is used as a cooling medicine.