Colquhounia elegans - Elegant Mint Shrub

Elegant Mint Shrub is a shrub 1-3 m tall, decumbent, hairy throughout. Flowers are borne in few flowered whorls, densely rust colored hairy, in dense head-like inflorescences on branches. Flowers are yellow or red, about 2.5-2.8 cm, velvet-hairy, tube slender, about 2.3 cm; upper lip erect, oblong, tip rounded or notched; lobes of lower lip ovate, nearly equal. The flower-tube is more than 3 times as long as the upper lip. Sepal-cup is 6-9 mm, teeth fine-pointed-triangular to triangular, about 3 mm. Floral leaves are short stalked, ovate, 2-3 cm; bracteoles 2-3 mm. Flower-stalk 1-2 mm. Branches are densely hairy with rust-colored hairs. Leaf-stalk are 1-1.5 cm; leaf blade elliptic, 4.5-8.5 x 2-4 cm, papery, hairy, densely so below, above finely blistery, base broadly wedge-shaped to rounded, margin with a short sharp point-crenulate, tip tapering. Elegant Mint Shrub is found in sunny thickets, forests, at altitudes of 1100-2000 m, SE Asia, China and probably NE India. Flowering: November-February.