BLACK SAGE (AudibSrtia stachybides, Benth.). Flowers 

 bluish, lilac, or white, about \ inch long, deeply 2-lipped, the 

 2 stamens little exserted, calyx teeth and bracts tipped with 

 bristles; borne in dense interrupted whorls, along the slender 

 stems. Leaves narrowish, wrinkled, dark green, 2 to 3 inches 

 long, with a strong, sage-like odor. Plants shrubby, 3 to 6 

 feet high, abundant on dry hillsides of Central and Southern 

 California, blooming from April to July. 



Black Sage is almost of equal importance with its cousin the 

 White Sage, as bee pasture. Entire sunny hillsides of the chap- 

 arral belt are sometimes covered with its thickets, which are 

 a-hum throughout the spring and early summer with happy, 

 winged harvesters of nectar. It is sometimes called Ball 

 Sage. Among the Indians the tiny seeds were collected by 

 being beaten with a fan into a gathering basket, and made an 

 item of value in diet, after first being parched and then ground 

 into a meal. 



The specific name stackyaides, applied to this Audibertia, 

 means "resembling Stachys," a genus of the Mint family, 

 characterized by a similar form of inflorescence in separated 

 whorls along the stems. 



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