Ballota hirsuta

Ballota hirsuta, often treated under the synonymous combination Pseudodictamnus hirsutus, is a perennial subshrub in the Lamiaceae family native to the western Mediterranean basin, where it is most abundant in Spain and Portugal and extends into Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia in North Africa. It grows on dry rocky slopes, garrigue, roadsides and abandoned terraces, often on calcareous soils in open sun. The plant is densely hairy throughout, with a short woody base giving rise to numerous erect to ascending, quadrangular, white-tomentose stems 30 to 80 centimetres tall. The opposite, petiolate leaves are broadly ovate to suborbicular, 1.5 to 4 centimetres long, with crenate to serrate margins, a wrinkled upper surface and a densely grey-woolly underside that gives the foliage its characteristically hoary appearance. Small bilabiate flowers are borne in compact axillary verticillasters towards the upper part of the stem; each flower has a tubular, ten-toothed calyx with spreading teeth and a pinkish-purple to whitish corolla 8 to 12 millimetres long with a hooded upper lip and a three-lobed lower lip. The fruit comprises four small smooth nutlets enclosed within the persistent, hardened calyx.