Prostanthera monticola, commonly known as Buffalo mint-bush,[1] is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae and is endemic to higher areas of south-eastern Australia. It is a sprawling, open shrub with red, hairy branches, lance-shaped to narrow elliptic leaves and pale bluish-green to grey-green flowers with dark purple-blue veins.
Prostanthera monticola is a sprawling, open shrub that typically grows to a height of with red, hairy, often ridged branches. The leaves are lance-shaped or egg-shaped to narrow elliptic and with a grooved upper surface, long and wide on a petiole long. The flowers are arranged singly on leaf axils on a pedicel long and covered with white hairs and with bracteoles long at the base. The sepals are green, and long forming a tube long with two lobes long. The petals are pale bluish-green to grey-green and with dark purple-blue veins, long, with two lips. The lower central lobe is long and about wide and the lower side lobes are long and about wide. The upper lip is egg-shaped and with three faint lobes and is about long and wide. Flowering occurs in summer.[2] [3] [4]
Prostanthera monticola was formally described in 1984 by Barry Conn in the Journal of the Adelaide Botanic Gardens, based on plant materials collected in 1980 at Crystal Brook Falls, Mount Buffalo in Victoria.[5]
Buffalo mint-bush occurs on granitic soils in forests from Kosciuszko National Park in New South Wales southwards to north-east Victoria in the Mount Buffalo National Park at altitudes of . Associated tree species include Eucalyptus delegatensis, E. pauciflora and E. stellulata.