Vern.: "Shwanko".

I.C. Hedge

Suffruticose much branched herb. Stems with an often gnarled woody base, leafy, erect, 10-25 cm tall, eglandular below with often retrorse long hairs, glandular above. Leaves borne ± erect to erect-spreading linear in outline with a sinuate-convolute margin and apparently or indeed pinnatifid, 5-13 x 1.5-3.5 mm, white canescent below with glandular and eglandular hairs and sessile oil globules, petiolate. Inflorescence with usually several, 1-2-flowered distant or approximating verticillasters. Bracts and bracteoles present. Pedicels in flower 1.5 mm elongating to 2.5 mm and recurved in fruit. Calyx tubular-campanulate, 3-4 mm in flower and c. 5 mm in fruit, with a dense indumentum of very long white spreading eglandular hairs, shorter capitate glandular hairs and sessile oil globules; upper lip of ± connivent acuminate-spinulose teeth. Corolla mauve, pink to lilac often with darker markings, 5-6 mm; upper lip straight much shorter than lower. Lower theca fertile; staminodes prominent. Nutlets smooth, black, ovoid-trigonous, c. 1.5 x l mm.

Fl. Per.: February-May (and later).

Type: Iran, in desertis ad Sinum Persicum, Aucher-Eloy 5214 [halo G!].

Distribution: Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan.

A frequent plant in many parts of Pakistan, growing in a wide variety of habitats (sandy plains, rocky slopes, wadis, shale slopes, roadsides and in cultivated fields). This and the following 4 species (together with others not in our area) form a very natural species-group; all are shrubby species with small flowers and similar nutlets. Aspects of their anatomical structure were dealt with by Bokhari & Hedge (in Notes Roy. Bot. Gard. Edinb. 35: 377-389. 1977).

See comments on Salvia halaensis at the end of the account.