Perennial with a sturdy rootstock, few-stemmed or forming clumps to 1 m across. Stems quadrangular, 20-120 cm, usually unbranched, lanate to pilose with irregularly rayed stellate hairs, above with sessile oil globules, leafy. Leaves broadly ovate to ovate-lanceolate, 15-45 x 15-40 mm, ± regularly crenate to crenate-serrate, greyish white below with irregularly rayed stellate hairs and usually sessile oil globules, greener above, broadly cuneate to subtruncate at base, apically ± rounded; petiole 15-20 mm. Verticillasters 8-12, in mils of upper leaves, dense, to 20-flowered, distant. Bracts subulate-spinulose, c. 8 mm. Calyx tubular, 10-ribbed thick-textured, ± densely covered with irregularly rayed stellate hairs and with some sessile oil globules; tube straight, 4-6 mm long, internally densely bearded at the throat, open in fruit; teeth (5-) to 10, subulate, with 5 longer 1.5-3 mm ones and 5 shorter 1.5 mm teeth, all horizontally spreading in fruit and apically curved to hooked. Corolla white or yellowish-white, stellate pilose, 8-10 mm; upper lip deeply bifid, straight; lower lip ± equal to upper; tube slender, pilose annulate within. Nutlets oblong, trigonous, c. 2 x 1.2 mm.

Fl. Per.: April-June. Fr.: July-September.

Type: [Caucasus, Daghestan] Derbend, Caspian sea, C. Koch (G).

Distribution: SE Europe, Turkey, Caucasus, Iran, C. Asia, Afghanistan, Paki-stan, Kashmir.

A dose relative of Marrubium vulgate L., q.v., Marrubium anisodon grows in a wide range of habitats, both natural and disturbed. There is considerable variation in the lengths and relative proportions of the long and short calyx teeth and some specimens closely approach Marrubium vulgar. Field studies are needed.