Herbaceous perennial, suffruticose at base, clump-forming, with an unpleasant smell; all parts, except for upper leaf surfaces, densely covered with a white woolly indumentum of stellate-dendroid hairs. Stems usually branched, sturdy, 30-50 cm, leafy, erect. Leaves thick-textured, narrow oblong-elliptic to ovate, 30-40 (-60) x 7-20 (-30) mm, sessile, entire or rarely finely serrulate, cuneate, acute, almost glabrous and green above or canescent, canescent-tomentose below; nervation prominent above; leaves decreasing in size upwards. Verticillasters 4-6-flowered, distant below, approximating above, on axillary and terminal branches forming spikes. Calyx with a very thick indumentum, 3.5-5 long and c. 2 mm wide, campanulate, not bilabiate; teeth equal, 5, c. 0.5 mm long, straight tube glabrous within; in fruit increasing to c. 7 mm. Corolla rose to magenta, c. 6-7 mm long with a short tube; upper and lower lobes scarcely differentiated. Stamens 4; filaments short inserted at or near throat of tube. Nutlet c. 3.5 x 2 mm, broadly obovoid, apically rounded, usually only 1, not mucilaginous.

Fl. Per.: May-June.

Lectotype (Rechinger l.c. 397): Afghanistan, "in regno Cabulico", Griffith 463 (K).

Distribution: NE Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Pamir-Alai, NW India.

An unmistakable species with its very dense stellate-dendroid indumentum and small corollas. Although Vvedensky created the independent genus Phlomidoschema for his main reason being the supposedly included (in the corolla tube) stamens, I prefer to regard it as a somewhat unusual member of the protean Stachys.