Common Name: rock sage

Duration: Perennial

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Subshrub

General: Low shrub 0.5-1.5 m tall with cinereous-puberulent twigs and leaves, hairs simple and minute; slender twigs with internodes 1-3 cm long.

Leaves: On petioles 4-15 mm long; blades broadly deltoid-ovate, 2-5 cm long and about as wide, obtuse to short-acuminate at apex, subcordate to broadly cuneate at base, margins coarsely crenate-serrate, upper surfaces soft-hirsutulous, pale green, lower surface ashy to silvery and densely but minutely tomentulose.

Flowers: Lanceolate bracts, deciduous, 4-6 mm long; flowers in lax glomerules, whole inflorescence 3-8 cm long; calyx 6-7 mm long at anthesis, 9-10 mm long in fruit, cinereous-hirsutulous, lower lip 3.5-5 mm long; corollas bluish, tube 4-5 mm long, upper lip 4.5-5 mm long, lower one usually slightly longer, both lips puberulent without; stamens equaling lips or slightly exserted.

Fruits: Ovary deeply 4-parted, with nutlets attached basally; nutlets ovoid to short-oblong and smooth.

Ecology: Found on rocky slopes and in canyons from 2,000-7,000 ft (610-2134 m); flowers August-December.

Notes: Distinguished from other Salvia by its narrowly cylindrical, campanulate calyx, which is hirsutulous and mostly green, while the pubescence on the twigs is of simple minute hairs.

Ethnobotany: Unknown, but other species in the genus have uses.

Etymology: Salvia comes from Latin salveo, or I am well, pinguifolia comes from the Latin pinguis fat, and folia for leaf, probably alluding to the viscid leaves.

Synonyms: Salvia ballotiflora var. pinguifolia

Editor: SBuckley, 2010