Nepeta coerulescens - Pale-Blue Catmint

Pale-Blue Catmint is an aromatic perennial herb with stems erect, 10-40 cm, mostly unbranched, leafy, finely eglandular hairy, four-edged. Flowers are borne at branch-ends in oblong or ovoid spike-like head. Whorls are crowded in axils of uppermost often lilac-blue leaves. Flowers are pale blue to lilac, 1-1.3 cm; tube protruding from sepal-cup, slender, scarcely widened above; upper lip deeply bifid; lower lip equal to upper. Sepal-cup is obscured among leaves and bracts, 6-7 mm, tubular-ovate, straight, throat oblique; teeth unequal, as long as or longer than sepal-tube. Inner bracts are narrow linear-ovate, as long as sepals. Leaves are ovate-elliptic or -oblong, 1.5-3.5 x 0.8-1.5 cm, erect or erect-spreading, rounded toothed or minutely toothed, broadly wedge-shaped or heart-shaped, pointed, densely eglandular hairy below. Leaf-stalk is absent to 4 mm. Pale-Blue Catmint is found in Himalaya to W. & Central China, at altitudes of 3600-5300 m. Flowering: July-August.