Penny, I believe it's refered to a salvia species'El Cielo Blue'. I read that it's real identity is salvia caudata.
Rich will probably revify. I think SG has a picture in his album.

Thanks Helena,
That is what I was thinking also but since I am not familiar with all the different cultivars i thought it was possible that a new hybrid had been given the 'cielo Blue' name. The person who sent the seed labeled them as S. Involucrata and underneath said it was called Roseleaf sage locally then off to the side wrote 'maybe El Cielo Blue'. The only place I found S. Involucrata Cielo Blue was from Cistus nursery in Oregon but no picture.

Penny

It would be interesting to see if they know the parentage(which flowers were involved).

As far as I know there isn't any S. involucrata Cielo Blue.

Roseleaf Sage is the common name for S. involucrata.

I'll have to call over to Cistus and find out what they have over there...

Look in the photo album below.

SG

Here is a link that might be useful: Salvia Photo Album

Penny, I just found info in salvia book page 156. There is a salvia involucrata"El Cielo', pic too.It says usually carry the name of the place in Mexico where the cultivar was collected:'Hidalgo', El Butano', and "El Cielo' are three exanples.

Helena,
thank you so much for letting me know that. at least now I know how to label my seedlings (when they sprout).

penny

Your welcome, I was surprised to find it. But I'm learning from this.

The nomenclature protocol of giving a cultivar name based on the collection site of a species is used most frequently by Yucca-Do Nursery. They collected the Salvia sp. `El Cielo' in the El Cielo Biosphere in southern Tamaulipas, which has since been identified as S. caudata.

S. puberula `El Butano' and perhaps the S. involucrata = S. puberula `El Cielo' are also theirs.

The S. puberula from Hidalgo is my collection, very close to the type location. The type is the herbarium sheet specimen of the original collection. These specimens are used to define new species.

At one time, I was told S. puberula was the same as S. involucrata and gave it to UC Berkeley under that name. It is the parent of the common S. karwinskii x puberula (involucrata).

After growing my S. puberula/involucrata from Hidalgo for some time and checking Epling's book on new world sages, I decided to go back to S. puberula. S. involucrata is supposed to be found only in central Mexico, not in the type area in Hidalgo of S. puberula and certainly not in Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, or Tamaulipas. I have since found out that puberula was redefined to be a subspecies of involucrata, but do not have the reference to study the relevant issues.

I maintain the use of S. puberula to help keep the cultivar names distinct. These plants need to be reexamined, because S. puberula `El Butano' is much different from either the type of S. puberula from Hidalgo or from standard forms of S. involucrata like bethelii.

It may be that Salvia involucrata 'Cielo Blue' is the same as my S. puberula Yucca-Do form, which is almost identical to S. puberula from Hidalgo.