Home
Spikes head-like, up to 10 × 10 mm and usually broader than long at flowering time, increasing to c. 3 cm long in fruiting spikes; peduncles usually solitary in the upper axils, widely spreading or ± ascending, 2–14 cm long and longer than the subtending leaf, usually stout, with indumentum as in the stems and branches; lowermost bracts ± leaf-like, up to c. 12(25) × 5(10) mm, inner bracts imbricate, longer or shorter than the flowers they subtend, ovate and shortly acuminate to truncate at the apex to ± attenuate, sericeous to hispid, accrescent in fruit.
Leaves decussate, subsessile or shortly petiolate; lamina 2–9.5(10) × 1–3 cm, narrowly oblong-elliptic to oblong-lanceolate or 1.5–5 × 1.4–3.5 cm, ovate-lanceolate to ovate or rotund, obtuse to ± acute at the apex, broadly cuneate to rounded or subcordate at the base, crenate to crenulate serrate on the margins in the upper part and entire in the lower one third, venation impressed above, prominent and reticulate beneath, ± densely sericeous to hispid-strigose on both surfaces, sometimes ± scabridulous, with small sessile glands.
Stems 1–many, up to 1 m tall, green, simple or branched above, striate, subterete to somewhat angular in the upper part, stems and branches rather leafy with inflorescences in upper axils, densely sericeous to hispid-strigose with patent or ± appressed tubercle based whitish hairs and small sessile glands.
Corolla yellow or white with a yellow centre, or in one variety deep magenta; tube hairy outside except at the base and below the upper lip; limb c. 2-lipped, c. 4 mm wide, the upper lip entire, rounded, the lower one 3-lobed, the lobes entire.
Mericarps ovoid, very convex, 2–2.5(3) × 1.25–2 mm, brownish and slightly shining outside, flat and white inside.
An erect perennial herb with annual stems from a woody rootstock, leaves aromatic when crushed.
Calyx c. 1.5 mm long, 2-lobed, ± densely appressed white-hairy to puberulous outside.
