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Help with Salvia ID
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Posted by poisondartfrog 7 (My Page) on Wed, Jun 10, 09 at 11:54
I sowed this one last summer but it did not bloom until recently. The tag has faded and I can't make out the species.
I keep thinking it will come to me but the harder I try to remember the more elusive the answer.
If someone can help me out, I would be most appreciative.
Alana
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Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| It has the properly colored flowers and bracts for Salvia sclarea, but the leaves are not hairy enough. Are you in a really cool and cloudy climate, like England or Seattle? |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| Hot and humid SE Kentucky. I went back and had a look at the leaves to see if they were hairier than they appear in the photo, but they are not. |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| I agree with Rich, it does look like Salvia sclarea, but the leaves should be hairier. Could it possibly be Salvia moorcroftiana? |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| If anything, moorcroftiana has hairier leaves, and they are as wide as sclarea, but twice as long. |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| I'm sure it's neither S sclarea nor S moorcroftiana. The flowers actually look more like S algeriensis, which is an annual, with smoother leaves, but the bracts are too big for this and do look like S sclarea. Since none of the experts recognise it as a species, it's tempting to fall back on the last resort of the confused and suggest a hybrid - maybe S sclarea x S algeriensis? If so it will almost certainly die after flowering - if it turns out to be a good perennial, I give up! |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| I have S.algeriensis in bloom at the moment, and I don't think the plant in the photo is related. I would imagine that it is S. sclarea, performing differently in a humid climate. Normally this prefers dry conditions. By the way, could you have been sold this as 'Clary Sage' or Salvia turkestanica? |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| Robin, I really can't believe this is unadulterated S sclarea - N Wales is damp enough and it's always much, much hairier when I grow it. Isn't this also much too small? But I do think it must have S sclarea in it somewhere, so if you don't think it's related to S algeriensis, couldn't it be a hybrid with something else? |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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I have never grown S. algeriensis, but I did have Salvia sclarea var. turkestanica alba in another garden perhaps 80 feet away for a couple of years. Could that be the source? It is gone now. I thought it would be perennial but it behaved like a biennial. They were rather more robust than this plant, but the conditions in that garden are probably more Salvia friendly than where this guy lives.
Perhaps I am mistaken about sowing it myself. It is in a garden with other Salvias (glutinosa, lyrata, verticillata, farinacea, greggii, superba) and it is unusual that there is but the one example as I tend to plant in 3's or 5's, but I just assumed it's fellows succumbed to some natural event, like my rooster scratching around in them.
If it is self sown, it established itself last year as I remember that the basal leaves were green all winter. The tag I am trying to read could belong to one of the other Salvias nearby. I reviewed my seeding notes from last year and did not list sclarea or "clary" sage for 08. I have other Salvia's in various locations, none of which resemble this one. I suppose the one that comes closest would be S. pratensis, Swan Lake.
Thank you for working on my puzzle! I think I will harvest the seeds and grow some out to see if they are consistent with the parent. Alana |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| OK, it's my bet it's a self-sown seedling from your S sclarea (which IS biennial), hybridised with something else - quite possibly Swan Lake. Since this is perennial, it will be interesting to see whether it survives once it's flowered. |
RE: Help with Salvia ID
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| There are a lot of Turkish and Central Asian sages with similar flowers to sclarea. |
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