I.C. Hedge & A. Paton

Perennial, often forming loose mats, suffruticose herb with a thick, woody rootstock. Stems prostrate, procumbent to weakly ascending, 9-30 cm, slender, round-quadrangular, sometimes purplish, leafy; indumentum dense with crisped, antrorse to long, mostly patent, eglandular hairs. Leaves 3-19 x 2-11 (-14) mm, triangular or ovate to broadly ovate, crenate to deeply crenate, truncate to cuneate, acute or obtuse, with dense adpressed eglandular hairs; upper leaves with sessile glands or not. Petioles 2-14 mm. Inflorescence 4-sided, condensed, terminal or lateral, short; flowers subtended by elliptic or ovate to broad ovate 7-13 x 3-5 mm, bracts which are entire or subentire, cuneate, acute or acuminate, densely ciliate, pilose, imbricate, cucullate and with sessile glands. Pedicels 2-4 mm, erect, flattened. Calyx in flower 1.5-2 mm, with a small scutellum, enlarging in fruit to 3-4 mm, with a 2-3 mm high scutellum; indumentum of long patent eglandular hairs. Corolla (15-) 19-26 mm, yellow, pale lilac, white or pale cream, usually with a purple hood, spreading-erect, densely pilose with glandular and eglandular hairs; tube (11-) 16-19 mm. Nutlets smooth, c. 1.5 x 1 mm, greyish-black, with a ± dense covering of adpressed white hairs.

Fl. Per.: June-September.

Type: “In montibus Indiae orientalis septentrionalis circa Pangui, Rarang et Choupienna, Jacquemont” (P).

Distribution: Pakistan, (Hazara, Swat, Gilgit) Kashmir, N.India to Nepal.

A prostrate alpine species recorded up to 4500 m in some areas of the Himalayas.