Agastache cusickii (Groenman) A. A. Heller 

 Cusick's horse-mint 



A. DESCRIPTION . 



1 General description: A. cusickii is an aromatic perennial 

 in the mint family (Lamiaceae) . Its habit, low growing from a 

 long, flexible, branching woody caudex, is adapted to growing 

 in loose talus. The small simple leaves are diamond to egg 

 shaped with serrated margins and short petioles and are borne 

 oppositely on relatively short aerial stems which are square 

 in cross section. The small flowers are borne in a dense 

 spike-like inflorescence with leaf like bracts. The flowers 

 are bilaterally symmetrical with a fused 5-toothed calyx and a 

 tubular, 2-lipped, usually lavender corolla. There are 4 

 exerted stamens and a single pistil with a bilobed stigma. 



2. Technical species description (quoted from Cronquist et al. 



1984): 



Stems numerous from a woody taproot and branching caudex, 

 1-2(3) dm tall, simple or branched, tending to be 

 somewhat woody at the base; stem, leaves, bracts, and 

 calyces finely hirtellous-puberlent ; leaf blades ovate, 

 deltoid-ovate, or a little narrower, crenate, mostly 

 (0.5)1-2(2.5) cm long and (4)6-15 mm wide, borne on 

 petioles up to 1(1.5) cm long; inflorescence mostly 

 (1)1.5-4 cm long (exclusive of any remote 

 verticillasters) , the bracts and calyces usually tinted 

 with lavender-purple (seldom whitish in part) ; calyx 

 teeth 2-5 mm long, lance-subulate, obscurely veined, or 

 only the midrib evident, seldom more evidently tri- 

 nerved; corolla 8-12 mm, measured to the tip of the upper 

 lip, this 1-2 mm long and evidently bilobed; lower pair 

 of stamens ascending under the upper lip and exerted 1-2 

 mm past it; upper stamens thrust downward and outward 

 between the lower stamens, exerted 2-5 mm. 



3. Diagnostic characters: In Montana, Agastache urtici folia, 

 nettle-leaved horse-mint, and A. foeniculaceum are the other 

 species in the genus; only the former is in Beaverhead County 

 and the Tendoy Mountains. The A. cusickii and A. urticifolia 

 are easily distinguished based on their overall size; A. 

 cusickii is dwarf (1-3 dm high) with small leaves (1-2.5 cm), 

 while A. urticifolia is large and coarse (>4 dm) with large 

 leaves (3.5-10 cm; Hitchcock and Cronquist 1973). 



B. GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



1. Species range: Scattered in the mountains of southeastern 

 Oregon, north and central Nevada, central Idaho (Cronquist et 

 al. 1984), and southwestern Montana. The species is not 

 included in Dorn (1984). 



