Duration: Annual

Nativity: Native

Lifeform: Forb/Herb

General: Annual with one to several erect, naked, peduncle-like stems 10-60 cm tall.

Leaves: Basal leaves, blades 5-15 cm long, 1-2 pinnatifid into toothed or irregularly incised divisions, cinereous-tomentose, petioles equal blade; 1-4 nodes above base also bearing somewhat reduced leaves, plant cinereous with short recurved hairs, purplish.

Flowers: In capitate verticils 2-4 cm in diameter, subtended by suborbicular, green to purplish, awn tipped bracts 6-14 mm long, sparsely ciliate along margins; calyx 8-10 mm long, upper lip of oblique orifice about three times as long as lower; corolla blue, 10-13 mm long, upper lip erose-denticulate and shallowly cleft, erect.

Fruits: Nutlets 2-2.22 mm long.

Ecology: Found on sandy, gravelly, or rarely clay soil on slopes, common in sandy washes below 3,500 ft (1067 m); flowers March-July.

Distribution: AZ, CA, s NV

Notes: Distinctive capitate verticils and blue flowers help to identify this annual plant.

Ethnobotany: Poultice of seed used for infections, to cleanser eyes, for fevers, for irritation and inflammation; the seeds are edible, and can be used to make a beverage, to render water palatable by removing alkalines; also used for pinole and mush to eat.

Etymology: Salvia comes from Latin salveo, or I am well, while columbariae is a reference to Columbian, or of western North America.

Synonyms: None

Editor: SBuckley, 2010