SALVIA B1C0L0E. 53 



blue, or scarlet ; but other tints are by no means absent in this family. There are 

 several species with yellow, and at least twenty with white blossoms ; others have 

 bright pink, lilac, or violet flowers ; and there are a few into the composition of 

 whose colouring nearly all the tints we have named may be said to enter. 



Among those most worthy of cultivation, we may name, azurea, Mans, Simsiana, 

 Afrieana, Inclica, Barrelieri, and grandiflora, with blue or violet flowers ; leucantha, 

 interrupta, and elegans, white ; glutinosa, nubicola, and aurea, yellow ; and rugosa, 

 Hablkiana, rosea, and calycina, pink. These are all perennials ; but there are also a 

 few annual species, some of which, such as (Ethiopis and Tingitana, merit a place 

 in the borders, though they are rarely procurable at any of the seed- shops ; and 

 indeed, many of the perennial species to which we have referred, are not to be 

 obtained without difficulty. 



From the diversity of colour presented by this genus, we feel persuaded that 

 many interesting varieties might be originated by hybridizing. We have now a 

 white S. patens ; what obstacle presents itself to the production of a pink, scarlet, 

 violet, or yellow variety of the same plant, by crossing with the pollen of some 

 other species ? We need hardly remark, that in addition to the gratification which 

 would naturally be felt by the raiser of a new variety of this, or any other species, 

 a more palpable reward might reasonably be reckoned upon. 



The Salvias are readily distinguished among Labiate plants by their peculiar 

 stamens, which have their two anther-cells separated by a long connective, one of 

 the cells being usually abortive. In the Monarda, popularly known as the Bergamot 

 plant, and in the Rosemary, but two stamens are present ; but the absence in these 

 genera of the branching connective, enables the student to determine, with facility, 

 the plants of the Salvia genus from its allies. By the older Botanists, the Labiatce 

 were supposed to have naked seeds, and were therefore termed by Linnaeus 

 Gymnospermous ; but it is almost superfluous to add, that this notion was long 

 since shown to be erroneous, the fruit or ovary of the plants of this order being, in 

 fact, deeply four-lobed, each lobe or nut containing a single seed. All the Lip-worts 

 are remarkable for the aromatic volatile oil existing in the foliage, as well as in the 

 calyx of some of the genera, and it is to this oil that the stomachic and stimulant 

 properties of the order are chiefly due. According to Lindley, camphor is so 

 abundant in this family, and especially in the oils of Sage and Lavender, that it 

 might be advantageously extracted. 



Although the Salvia bicolor has been found, as we have already intimated, in the 

 North of India, it appears also to be a native of Barbary, from which country it was 

 first introduced. 



