Nepeta connata - Kashmir Catmint

Kashmir Catmint is a handsome and distinct species almost restricted to Kashmir where it is common. Flowers are borne in a short or elongated continuous show spike, 4-12 cm long, with flowers congested. Flower mauve to blue violet, 2-2.5 cm; tube protruding, somewhat curved, widening to about 4 mm wide at throat; upper lip hooded; lower lip reflexed, sometimes violet. Sepal-cup is 1.1-1.6 cm, thin-textured, slender, with short glandular and long hairy eglandular hairs; throat straight; teeth almost equal as long as or longer than tube, linear, with long awns, fringed with hairs. Inner bracts are linear, membranous, almost as long as sepals. Flower-stalks are 0.1-1.2 cm. It is a sturdy erect perennial herb with a woody rootstock. Leaves are linear to linear-lanceshaped, 8-16 x 0.3-2 cm, stalkless, heart-shaped or not, stem-clasping or fused, entire-margined, pointed-tapering, thick-textured, with a prominent mid-vein, hairless or hairy. Stems are 30-80 cm mostly solitary and unbranched, four-edged, hairless, with very short adpressed retrorse hairs or with numerous hairs, leafy. Nutlets are about 1.5 x 1.3 mm, chestnut-brown, smooth, shining, oblong-round, somewhat flat-trigonous with a small areole. Kashmir Catmint is found in Kashmir, NW India and Pakistan, at altitudes of about 2300 m. Flowering: July-September.