DESCRIPTIVE LIST OF FLOWERS. 347 



hyhrida ^VQ iron-brown, and yellow-veined with brown; 

 S. sinuata^ flowers a dark-blood color, veined or striped ; 

 S. picta has beautiful striped flowers, all grow from one 

 and a half to two feet high. They succeed finely w^hen 

 started in a hot-bed, flowering profusely from August to 

 October. The best soil for their cultivation is a mixture 

 of loam and sand, enriched with rotted horse-manure and 

 a little leaf-mould. In heavy soil it will not succeed so well. 



SALVIA.-SAGE. 



[From salveo, to save, on account of the healing quality of the plants.] 



The common Sage (Salvia offici?ialis), is well known 

 as a garden medicinal plant. It was formerly in great 

 repute in medicine. In cookery it is used for sauces, stuf- 

 fings, etc. 



This genus is very large, and consists of herbs and un- 

 der-shrubs, the leaves of which have generally a roughish 

 appearance, the smell aromatic, and the flowers commonly 

 in spikes, two or three together from a bract or leaf. 

 They are all of easy culture, and some of them are orna- 

 mental green-house plants or border-flowers. 



Salvia spl^ndens. — A Mexican plant of extraordinary 

 beauty for the green-house or border, but tender, and will 

 not bear the frost. It is easily raised from cuttings, which, 

 when well established in pots and turned out into the 

 garden in June, will soon become large plants and pro- 

 duce a profusion of large scarlet flowers in spikes, which 

 continue to give brilliancy to the garden until cut down 

 by the frost. The plants become quite bushy, often three 

 or four feet high. 



S. fulgens. — Tliis is also tender, but may be used as a 

 border-flower, when treated like jS. splendens. It is not 

 so free a flowcrer. The flowers are scarlet-crimson, some- 



