Cutleaf selfheal

Prunella laciniata, the cutleaf selfheal, is a low spreading perennial herb in the family Lamiaceae native to most of Europe, North Africa, and southwest Asia, and naturalized in parts of North America. Plants form loose mats with ascending or weakly erect, four-angled stems 10-30 cm tall, clothed in long shaggy white hairs throughout. The species is most easily distinguished from the very similar common selfheal (P. vulgaris) by its leaves: the upper and middle stem leaves are conspicuously pinnately divided into narrow oblong lobes (hence laciniata, meaning torn or slashed), while the lower leaves may be entire or merely toothed. The inflorescence is a dense terminal four-angled cylindrical to ovoid head 2-4 cm long, subtended by a pair of broad sessile bracts and a series of reniform-rhombic bracts at each whorl. Flowers are creamy white to pale yellow (rarely pinkish), two-lipped, 12-16 mm long, with a hood-shaped upper lip and a three-lobed lower lip. Flowering occurs from May to August. The fruit consists of four small smooth nutlets enclosed in the persistent calyx. The species inhabits dry calcareous grasslands, sunny banks, garrigues, and dry meadows.