Abstract
Elsholtzia Willdenow (1790: 3) is a genus of the family Lamiaceae and currently placed in tribe Elsholtzieae of subfamily Nepetoideae (Chen et al. 2016). As traditionally circumscribed, Elsholtzia contains about 40 species widely occurring in Africa, East Asia, Europe, and North America, with a particular high diversity in China (Li & Hedge 1994). There are 33 species, 15 varieties, and five forms recognized in Flora of China (Li & Hedge 1994), and two new species, E. lamprophylla Xiang & Liu (2012: 578) and E. litangensis C.X.Pu & W.Y.Chen in Pu et al. (2012: 174), were described in the recent decade. Most of Elsholtzia species were commonly used as traditional medicinal herbs or nectar source plants in China (Editorial Board of Zhong Hua Ben Cao 1999, Li & Hedge 1994). In the molecular phylogeny of Elsholtzia (Chen et al. 2016, Li et al. 2017), E. flava Bentham (1833: 161) and E. penduliflora Smith (1918: 176) have been revealed to be separated from the remainder of the genus, which were recently assigned to a new genus, Vuhuangia Solomon Raju, Molinari & Mayta in Mayta et al. (2016: 3).