LABIATE. 



643 



garden Sage (S. officinalis) from southern Europe as a potherb, and 

 several American ones for the beauty of their flowers. 



1. Meadow Sage. Salvia pratensis, Linn. (Fig. 770.) 



(Eng. Bot. t. 153.) 



Stock perennial, with a spreading tuft 

 of shortly stalked radical leaves, ovate, 

 heart-shaped, or oblong, 2 to 6 inches 

 long, coarsely toothed, and very much 

 wrinkled. Stem 1 to 1^ feet high, 

 slightly downy, with only a few narrow 

 leaves near its base. Flowers in a long 

 and handsome, terminal, simple or 

 scarcely branched spike, composed of 

 whorls of about 6 flowers, at regular 

 distances. Upper lip of the calyx mi- 

 nutely 3-toothed. Corolla near thrice 

 as long, of a rich blue, with a long, 

 arched upper lip. 

 • In dry pastures, roadsides, and waste 

 places, in central and southern Europe 

 to the Caucasus, extending northwards 

 into Sweden and to the French side of 

 the English Channel. Rare in England, 

 and hitherto almost confined to the neighbourhood of Cbbham, in 

 Kent. Fl. summer. 



Fig. 770. 



2. Wild Sage. Salvia verbenaca, Linn. (Fig. 771.) 

 (Eng. Bot. t. 154.) 



A coarse, more or less hairy, erect perennial, 1 to lj or rarely 

 2 feet high, and slightly branched. Lower leaves stalked, ovate, 

 coarsely toothed or lobed, and much wrinkled; the upper ones ses- 

 sile, broader and shorter ; the bract-like floral leaves small, heart- 

 shaped, and entire. Flowers small, blue, in whorls of jab out 6, form- 

 ing terminal hairy spikes ; the corolla seldom twice the length of the 

 calyx. 



In waste places, on roadsides, etc., in northern and central Europe 

 and liussian Asia. Scattered over England, Ireland, and southern 



m 2 



