Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Herbaceous perennials, 40-120 cm tall, stems square, slender, minutely and closely canescent, older stems striate-fissured, glabrate, light brown, herbage aromatic, plants woody chiefly at the base.

Leaves: Opposite, lanceolate to lance-ovate, 1-5 cm long, 5-15 mm wide, bases rounded to broadly cuneate, acute to obtuse at the tips, margins toothed, surfaces tomentose and velvety with minute white hairs, at least below, greenish above, petioles 2-10 mm long, verticils crowded.

Flowers: Dark blue, corollas 6-7 mm long, canescent, strongly 2-lipped, the upper lip entire, boat-shaped, 3 mm long, lower lip fan-shaped with 6-9 shallow teeth, 3-4 mm long, calyx flared campanulate, 5-6 mm long, 3-4 mm in diameter, also 2-lipped, laterally compressed, strongly striate-veined, upper lip entire, lower lip 2-toothed, densely villous with branched hairs, stamens 2, contained within the lower arm of each connective lanate and bent at a sharp angle, flowers in interrupted spikes 10-15 mm long, with 3 or more flowers to each verticel, bracts lance ovate to broadly ovate, 5-10 mm long, purplish.

Fruits: Nutlets, 4, smooth. Seeds very small, black.

Ecology: Found in gravelly or sandy soils; 3,500-5,000 ft (1067-1524 m); flowering April-August.

Distribution: s AZ; NM; south to n MEX.

Notes: Distinguished by being a light gray-green perennial with many erect stems froming dense bunches and stands; herbage has a slight fragrance; the plant has entire leaves <10cm long with herbage and especially the inflorescence and calyces dense with long, white, tangled, branched hairs (villous-tomentose). The inflorescence is dense with crowded whorls of flowers forming a spike. If the plant is similar but the calyx is canescent with minute, simple, appressed hairs, the species is likely S. pinguifolia.

Ethnobotany: There is no use recorded for this species, but other species in this genus have uses.

Synonyms: None

Editor: LCrumbacher 2012, FSCoburn 2015

Etymology: Salvia comes from the Latin salveo, "I am well," and an herb, Salvia, used for healing, while parryi is named for Dr. Charles Christopher Parry (1823-1890), an English-born American botanist and botanical collector with the Pacific Railway Survey.