I.C. Hedge

Perennial herb. Stems several, branched from base, 30-50 cm, with a spreading villous or shortly retrorse pilose eglandular indumentum, leafy. Leaves broadly ovate to triangular-ovate, 15-35 x 10-30 mm, usually greyish white below and green above, truncate or cordate, ± regularly crenate, rounded to acute; petiole 12-16 mm on lower leaves. Inflorescence of numerous sessile or shortly pedunculate many-flowered congested cymes forming an elongated or short spike interrupted below. Bracts 2.5-3.5 mm, linear-subulate. Pedicels c. 1-1.5 mm. Calyx 6.5-8 mm, curved, narrow tubular, purplish green, with a dense indumentum of eglandular long hairs and some sessile oil globules; throat clearly oblique; teeth markedly unequal, c. 1/4-1/3 length of calyx, linear-triangular, subulate. Corolla light purple, c. 12 mm; tube curved, slender, scarcely widened above, clearly exserted. Stamens somewhat exserted. Nutlets 1.6 x 0.8 mm, dark brown, ellipsoid, depressed tuberculate, with a V-shaped areole, c. 1/3 length of nutlet.

Fl. Per.: April-October.

Holotype: [B-7] Swat, Malakand to Barikot, near Thana, 700 m, Lomond 1659 (E!).

Distribution: Endemic.

Related in the original description to Nepeta ciliaris Benth. and Nepeta distans; also with similarities, especially of leaf, to Nepeta leucophylla Benth. Distinguished from these species by the exserted corollas. See comments under Nepeta schmidii.