Botanical name:Scutellaria prostrataFamily:Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Prostrate Skullcap is a perennial woody herb, often
forming loose mats, with a thick, woody rootstock. Flowers are
subtended by elliptic or ovate to broad ovate 7-13 x 3-5 mm, bracts
which are entire or nearly so, densely hairy. Flower-stalks are 2-4
mm, erect, flattened. Sepal cup in flower is 1.5-2 mm, with a small
scutellum, enlarging in fruit to 3-4 mm, with a 2-3 mm high scutellum.
Flowers are 1.9-2.6 cm, yellow, pale lilac, white or pale cream,
usually with a purple hood, spreading-erect, densely hairy with
glandular and eglandular hairs. Flower-tube is 1.6-1.9 cm. Stems are
prostrate, weakly ascending, 9-30 cm, slender, round-quadrangular,
sometimes purplish, leafy. The plant is densely hairy. Leaves are 3-19
x 2-11 mm, triangular or ovate to broadly ovate, toothed to deeply
toothed, base flat to wedge-shaped, tip pointed to blunt.
Leaf-stalks are 2-14 mm. Inflorescence is 4-sided, short, condensed, in
leaf axils or at branch ends.
Prostrate Skullcap is found in the Himalayas, from Kashmir to Nepal, at
altitudes of 2400-4500 m. Flowering: June-September.
Identification credit: Krishan Lal
Photographed in Lahaul-Spiti, Himachal Pradesh.
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The flower labeled Prostrate Skullcap is ...