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Electronic Flora of South Australia
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Electronic Flora of South Australia genus Fact Sheet

Family: Lamiaceae
Salvia

Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 23 (1753).

Derivation: Latin name of S. officinalis, the garden sage; a herb used mainly to cure catarrh; from Latin salvare, to heal.

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Sages.

Description:
Annual to perennial herbs, rarely woody shrubs, with quadrangular stems more or less covered with simple hairs often together with sessile glands; leaves petiolate, opposite, entire, crenate to deeply lobed.

Inflorescence a thyrse with sessile cymose part-inflorescences often reduced to 1 or 2 slightly stalked flowers, with internodes more or less elongating so that they are usually visible between the clusters of flowers, with subtending bracts usually shorter than the flowers; sepals unequally connate, 2-lipped, with the posterior lip 3-lobed, rarely 1 broad one, with the anterior lip deeply 2-lobed; corolla 2-lipped, with the posterior lip erect, more or less hooded, and scarcely 2-lobed, with the anterior lip with 2 narrow lateral lobes and a broader central one; stamens 2 fertile and 2 minute staminodes sometimes present, inserted in the throat of the corolla tube; anthers with 1 cell fertile at the end of a long curved connective which is continued into a broadened part beyond the filament terminating sometimes in an obvious sterile second cell; ovary deeply 4-lobed, with 1 basal ovule in each locule, with a gynobasic style and a terminal often unequally 2-fid stigma.

Fruit usually with 4 mericarps obovoid, vaguely triangular in section and scarcely keeled, with the attachment scar about circular, basal.

Distribution:  About 700 species in tropical to temperate regions of the world; 1 species native and 6 species naturalised in Australia.

Biology: No text

Key to Species:
1. Woody shrubs; anterior calyx lobes broadly lobed; corolla rusty- brown
S. aurea 2.
1. Annual herb or perennials with a tough basal rosette; anterior calyx lobes spine-tipped or mucronate; corolla purple, blue to white
 
2. Annual shrublets; leaves entire or with distant serrations
S. reflexa 3.
2. Biennials to perennials with a basal rosette; leaves lobed and/or densely serrate to crenate
 
3. Stems woolly with coiled hairs; bracts spine-tipped
S. aethiopis 1.
3. Stems more or less hairy with spreading hairs; bracts without spines
S. verbenaca 4.

Author: Not yet available


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