SALVIA AZUREA. 
(Azure-blue Flowering Sage.) 
Claia. Order. 
DIANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order. 
LABIATE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx ovate, tubular, or 
campanulate, bilabiate; upper lip entire, or tridentate ; 
lower one bifid ; throat naked inside. Corolla with 
an inclosed or exserted tube, which is equal, ventri- 
cose or widened, sometimes furnished with a ring of 
hairs inside, sometimes naked, or furnished with two 
teeth or processes on the lower side at the base ; limb 
bilabiate ; upper lip erect, rarely spreading, straight 
or falcate, entire or emarginate ; lower lip spreading, 
shorter or longer, with the lateral lobes oblong or 
roundish, spreading, reflexed, or twisted erectly, the 
middle lobe usually the broadest, entire or emarginate. 
Rudiments of superior stamens wanting, or small and 
club-shaped ; lower two always fertile, inserted near 
the throat of the tube ; filaments short, horizontal, 
rarely erect, articulated with the anther at top, and 
usually drawn out beneath the articulation, rarely 
almost continuous. Anthers dimidiate ; connective 
elongated, linear, articulated transversely with the 
filament, ascending under the upper lip of the corolla, 
and bearing at the top a linear, adnate, or versatile 
fertile cell, and deflexed or erect behind, and some- 
times bearing another smaller cell, which is either 
fertile or difformed, and empty ; free, but usually 
combined together, or connate in various ways. Bisk 
of ovarium glanduliferous in front. Style ascending, 
bifid at top ; lobes sometimes subulate, equal, or the 
superior one the longest, and sometimes the lower one 
or both are rounded, dilated, and flattened. Stigmas 
for the most part minute, terminal, or in the larger 
part running along the lobes of the style. Achenia 
ovoid-triquetrous, dry, glabrous, usually very smooth. 
— Bon's Gard. and Botany. 
Specific Character. — Plant a tall perennial. Stem 
herbaceous, erect, glabrous. Leaves petiolate, long, ob- 
long-lanceolate, or linear, bluntish, narrowed a long 
way at the base, entire or few-toothed, green on both 
surfaces, and glabrous ; floral leaves lanceolate and 
linear, deciduous. Racemes simple, elongated. Whorls 
distant, subsecund, generally six-flowered. Calyxes 
nearly sessile, tubular, s-triated, nearly glabrous, with 
the upper lip entire, and the teeth of the lower lip 
broad, acutish. Corolla more than twice as long as 
the calyx, pubescent outside ; tube ventricose, and 
half as long again as the calyx. Style bifariously 
bearded. 
Synonyme. — S-. elata ; S. acuminata ; S. longifolia ■; 
S. mexicana ; and S. angusti/olia of some. S. am- 
minatissima. 
When we consider the vast extent of this genus, nearly three hundred species 
being described in botanical works, it is not surprising that we occasionally find the 
same kind described by different writers under various names, and sometimes the 
same appellation applied to two or more different species. Thus, the present plant 
has received the title of S. mexicana — (Walter, in Fl. Car.) — a name previously 
occupied by another blue-flowering, but very distinct species ; and in the North 
American Flora of Michaux it is called S. angustifolia, a name also appropriated 
to another and a well-known species. As our gardens possess both the kinds 
which are commonly received by these names, we have judged it proper to give 
the above explanation, to prevent the occurrence of any mistake through confounding 
the present with them. 
S. azurea is by no means a new thing to the collections of this country, 
having been imported as long ago as the commencement of the present century. 
We are not aware whether any of the importations of that period still exist ; but 
believe it had been lost, or nearly so, till lately re-introduced from a continental 
collection, by Messrs. Knight and Perry, of Chelsea, in whose nursery we had the 
annexed representation taken last November. 
It has been met with in its wild state generally throughout most of the southern 
parts of North America. It grows plentifully in Georgia, Carolina, Eastern 
