My praeclara grew to about 3 ft and started blooming nicely
untill it got extreme hot and humid. I have very sandy soil and maybe it was in too much sun... it dried up and died before I even noticed. I have a iodantha right next to it that is doing fine. It didn't get any mildew. I did get plenty of seeds to try again in a shadier spot next time.
Helena

Does anybody have a picture of this species? I am trying to figure out a very lovely unknown salvia, and it looks like a S. coccinea but it is too tall for one. Maybe it is S. praeclara. Help!

Joseph

Robin has on page 4 on his robinssalvias.com site. My pic turned out a bit blurry on my s. album. Hope this helps.

Here is the mystery salvia, that stands 3.5 feet tall, and the color of the flower in the photograph is true to real life.

Here is a link that might be useful:

A closer look at it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Image 2

Don't mean to change the subject, but a tornado in the UK? Didn't know there ever WAS such a thing! Global warming is really hitting Europe hard! Pretty soon, you won't need to have salvias in a Glasshouse. :o)

Yes, really! About 50 homes were destroyed, but amazingly there were no casualties. Yesterday we had a hailstorm and the whole garden was white...and we are in August!

Not sure if the pictures are praeclara or not. Will look more closely

Robin.

Boy I feel like an idiot, but maybe just a little disorganized. I discovered I had S. praeclara growing in a container on the other side of the house from the mystery plant. Mystery salvia is not S. praeclara, it looks like a coccinea salvia but it is so much taller than any coccinea I have grown.

hm, Robin, you got me a little scared now with the tornados and the hailstorms! I hope that this is not like your regular summer conditions. And LOL how far is Birmingham from Reading?

back to the salvias... In your site, flowers of S.praeclara look very similar S.pauciserrata.I was wondering how similar are these two? (even though one comes from Bolivia and the other from Venezuela)

and a S.haenkei question. I've seen it growing in Peru, where it is very abundant around the Cuzco area. I have noticed that it came in many colour forms, different shorts of pinks, all shorts of orange, yellow and red. Have you or anybody else been familiar with this colour variation in the species?

Dariot JR

Don't worry, violent weather is rare in the UK...though there was a bad tornado on the South coast at Selsey two years ago.

Yes, the flowers of S. praeclara and S. pauciserrata are indeed similar, but the plants are quite different, the latter being much later to flower, and with slightly shiny foliage which does not get mildew.

S. haenkei is indeed a very variable species, I have 3 forms, all scarlet. One has very sticky stems, the other does not. The third has gorgeous flowers, but only a few at a time, which have an almost black colouration on the top of the upper lip. S. haenkei has also hybridised with S. orbignaei in Bolivia, giving rise to some superb forms. See the one I named 'Petra' on my site. I have never seen yellow or orange forms...but I would sure love to!

Re weather, we are now having Greek warmth and prolonged sunshine. What a strange summer we have had! My thoughts go out to the residents of New Orleans...what a terrible catastrophe for such a beautiful city.

Robin.

Forgot to mention, there is a form of S. coccinea named S. pseudococcinea (not sure if this is botanically correct) which has scarlet flowers and does indeed grow twice as tall as the usual coccinea. Of course, this could be due to climate variations.

Robin.