Common name: Elliptic-Leaved Catmint • Hindi: Tukhmalanga, Zoofa
Botanical name:Nepeta ellipticaFamily:Lamiaceae (Mint family) Synonyms: Nepeta polystachya
Elliptic-Leaved Catmint is a perennial herb with erect stem, 1-2 ft tall,
branched, 4-angled, densely covered with long white hairs. Leaves are
narrow or broadly elliptic, 1.5-3.5 cm longm 0.8-1.8 cm wide, toothed,
flat or heart-shaped at base, rounded at the tip. The upper surface of the
leaves is almost hairless, with an eglandualar pilose or villous
indumentums mostly confined to the veins beneath, and with numerous
sessile glands. All leaves are stalkless or with a stalk up to 0.5 mm.
Pale mauve or bluish flowers are borne condensed spikes, up to 10 x 1-1.5
cm. Outer bracts are ovate-lanceshaped to broad obovate, up to 6 x 4 mm.
Flower-stalks are up to 4 mm long. Sepals cup is narrow tubular-
obtriangular, eglandular pilose with or without glands and minute
glandular papillae; throat oblique. Teeth-like sepals are unequal, linear,
subulate, ciliate, as long as sepal tube. Flowers are 1-1.5 cm. Nutlets
are 1.5 x 0.9-1 mm, ellipsoid, rounded above and below, brownish black,
shiny, somewhat flattened, with a bibbed basal areale. Elliptic-Leaved
Catmint is found in the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Nepal, at altitudes of
1700-2700 m.
Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh
Photographed in Manali, Himachal Pradesh & Dhanaulti, Uttarakhand.
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The flower labeled Elliptic-Leaved Catmint is ...