Abstract
Dysophylla petelotii, originally described from Vietnam in 1936, is an invalidly published name because of the lack of a Latin diagnosis. It was later transferred to Pogostemon as P. petelotii (Doan) Phuong and P. petelotii (Doan) Budantzev, but neither Phuong nor Budantzev validly published the name P. petelotii because the basionym had not yet been validly published and neither of them provided a Latin diagnosis. Based on the studies of herbarium material, P. petelotii can be recognized as an independent species. We validate the name through providing an English diagnosis. Pogostemon petelotii is very closely related to P. cruciatus, but can be easily distinguished from the latter by leaf characters.