Perennial fleshy herbs, sometimes stoloniferous. Leaves mainly radical, entire to pinnatifid. Flowering stems scape-like, leafy above (the leaves sometimes reduced and bract-like) or entirely naked. Inflorescence a dense spike-like raceme or ± globose head, bracteate, ebracteolate. Bracts usually broad, imbricate, usually equalling or longer than flowers but sometimes shorter. Calyx spathaceous or of 2 sepals, imbricate in bud. Corolla blue, purple or white; tube curved; limb bilabiate, upper lip entire or bifid, lower lip 2-4-lobed. Stamens 2, inserted at corolla throat; anthers reniform. Ovary bilocular; style slender, jointed at base, with capitate or bifid stigma. Fruit a small, bilocular, 1-2-seeded drupe.
About 32 species, centered in the mountains of western China and Tibet; extending through the whole of the Himalaya, thinning out westwards through S.W. Asia to Anatolia (L. stolonifera and allies), and north and east through C. Asia, Mongolia and the Urals to Kamchatka and the Arctic regions of U.S.S.R. and N. America (L. glauca and allies).
In the APG III classification (2009) Lagotis is included in the expanded family Plantaginaceae.