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Sticky Catmint
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Sticky Catmint
P Native Unknown Photo: Christian Bravard
Common name: Sticky Catmint
Botanical name: Nepeta glutinosa    Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Synonyms: Glechoma glutinosa, Nepeta badamdarica

Sticky Catmint is a distinctive plant easily recognized by its dense sticky hairs, sawtoothed-deeply-cut leaves and long flowers. It is a perennial herb, clustered, 40-70 cm or more tall, densely glandular, aromatic. Stems have scalelike leaves basally, densely glandular hairy. Leaves are stalkless; leaf blade heart-shaped-ovate, 1.3-3 × 0.8-2.2 cm, sticky, glandular, semi-stem-clasping, margin deeply incised-sawtoothed. Flowers are borne in 4- or 5-flowered whorls, in axils of upper 4-8 pairs of leaves, densely glandular hairy, widely spaced basally. Flowers are bluish or purplish, 1.8-2.2 cm; tube slender, much protruding, dilated into limb, throat inprominent; upper lip 2.5-3 mm, lower lip about 1.5 times as long as upper lip, middle lobe kidney-shaped, about 2.5 x 4-5 mm.Sepal-cup 0.8-1.2 cm × 2-3 mm, erect, obconical, densely glandular hairy, throat oblique; teeth ovate-triangular to lanceshaped-triangular. Flower-stalks are 1-2.5 mm. Sticky Catmint is found in alpine grasslands at altitudes of 3500-4200 m, in NE Afghanistan to Xinjiang and W Himalaya. Flowering: July-August.

Identification credit: Christian Bravard Photographed in Ladakh.

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