It is related to S. pratensis ans S. nemerosa, and is intermediate in size. It is supposed to be a good honeybee plant.

Hello Joseph ! Yes, I have grown this species. I received seeds of it from Tashkent Botanical Garden, when I was there in 2005, and I also collected seeds of it in Chimgan ( Uzbekistan )It's a very hardy species, and is not xeric,even if it probably does well in a well drained site but it is probably very adaptable. I have grown it in a regular flower bed ( quite rich soil ), and it flowers first year from seed if sown early. Small purple flowers.

Paul, while you were in Tashkent, did you come across Salvia bucharica? It is named after the old spice road city of Bukhara and is found in Afghanistan and in the mountains to the north and east, including the Pamirs.

It is a very showy species with large rose bracts, somewhat similar to the similarly showy American S. pachyphylla in habit. A lot of natural products chemistry has recently been done on the terpenes, so there should be some good collection data.

My profession is natural products chemistry, but I am retired and do not have access to professional articles because of the expenses of ordering articles that may or may not be useful.

I could not find any online images to link to.

Here is a link that might be useful: Salvia bucharica Popov