I.C. Hedge

Suffruticose much branched herb. Stems leafy, erect-ascending, c. 20 cm tall, usually eglandular below with long and short hairs and with capitate glandular hairs above. Leaves darkish green congested and pseudoverticillate on short branches at nodes, linear in outline with a convolute margin, pinnatifid, 4-8 x 1.5-3 mm, darkish green, pilose to villous with glandular and eglandular hairs and numerous sessile oil globules, petiolate. Inflorescence few-flowered; verticillasters usually 2-flowered, somewhat distant. Bracts and bracteoles present. Pedicels c. 2 mm in flower and up to 5 mm in fruit. Calyx tubular-campanulate, 5-7 mm in flower and 6-9 mm and infundibuliform in fruit, with a dense indumentum of long spreading eglandular hairs, short capitate glandular hairs and numerous sessile oil globules; upper lip of 3 connivent teeth; lower lip with 2 spinulose teeth. Corolla pale or dark blue-violet, 10-12 mm long; tube exserted from calyx lips; upper lip short, straight, scarcely shorter than recurved lower lip. Lower theca fertile; staminodes distinct. Nutlets smooth, black, ovoid-trigonous, 2 x 1.4 mm.

Fl. Per.: April-May.

Type: [Afghanistan] In regno Cabulico" [exact locality uncertain - possibly Turnuk], Griffith 791 [holo K!].

Distribution: Afghanistan, Pakistan.

A clear ally of Salvia santolinifolia but with darker green, apparently whorled leaves and larger calyces and corollas. To date only known in Pakistan from very dose to the Afghanistan frontier.