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Shady Calamint
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Shady Calamint
ative Photo: Thingnam Girija
Common name: Shady Calamint, Transvaal caldelabra tree • Hindi: Birchee • Nepali: सुपर्नासा Suparnasa, बिलाजोर Bilajor
Botanical name: Clinopodium umbrosum    Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Synonyms: Calamintha umbrosa, Clinopodium repens, Melissa umbrosum

Shady Calamint is a softly hairy perennial herb, growing up to 1-3 ft tall, with short stalked ovate leaves which have sharply toothed margin. Flowers are small, pink or purple, borne in lax few-flowered whorls, with few short slender bracts. Flowers are about 8 mm long, with a sepal tube 6 mm long, with unequal sepals. Sepals have bristly hairs on them. Flowers are pink to purple, 6-9 mm long. Flower-tube is mostly inside the sepal tube or scarcely protruding out. Flowerlimb is 2-lipped, upper lip deflexed, 2-lobed, lower 3-lobed, mid-lobe larger. Stamens are 4, didynamous, protruding, included in the upper lip of flower. Shady Calamint is found in the Himalayas, from Afghanistan to SE Asia, at altitudes of 1000-3400 m. Flowering: April-October.
Medicinal uses: In Nepal, juice of the leaves is applied to cuts and wounds.

Identification credit: Gurcharan Singh Photographed in Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh.

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