Minty Keepsafe

This species is a straggling to erect herb or soft shrub 0.5–1.5 m (1 ft 8 in – 4 ft 11 in) tall, much branched, with hispid stems. The leaves are borne on stalks, with broadly ovate blades 15–40 mm (0.59–1.57 in) long. The upper surface is thinly hairy, while the underside is more coarsely hispid and distinctly reticulate-veined. The leaf tips are blunt to rounded, the bases obtuse to truncate, and the margins are shallowly crenate to serrate. The petioles are 5–15 mm (0.20–0.59 in) long. The inflorescences are lax racemes 150–300 mm (5.9–11.8 in) long, composed of many well-spaced whorls. Each whorl bears two to eight, occasionally up to twelve, flowers. The bracts are ovate and tapering, 4–5 mm (0.16–0.20 in) long. The calyx is hispid and about 3.5 mm (0.14 in) long at flowering, enlarging to 6–7 mm (0.24–0.28 in) in fruit. The corolla is white and about 5 mm (0.20 in) long. Endostemon obtusifolius flowers from November to May.

Identification. In tropic eastern Africa, this species can be distinguished from Endostemon villosus and Endostemon usambarensis by its shorter, white flowers.

Endostemon obtusifolius grows in forest margins and along wooded streams in Angola, Eswatini, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. In the latter country, it can be found from the Soutpansberg to Barberton, through coastal and semi-coastal Kwazulu-Natal into the Eastern Cape.