82 
SALVIA AZURE A. 
Florida, Jacksonville, Arkansas, and several other states ; and in the more northern 
parts its great beauty has secured it a rank amongst cultivated flowers. 
In habit it is much superior to S. angustifolia^ which it resembles in the form 
of its blossoms, and in having long narrow foliage. It is an herbaceous species, 
varying in height from three to five feet, and in its native localities frequently 
attaining six or seven feet. The foliage, however, is more ample, and the stems 
are not weak and straggling like those of 
its ally, but strong enough to preserve a 
perfectly erect habit. And, though the 
flowers separately are small, they are pro- 
duced densely in lengthened clusters, and 
are valuable for the exquisite delicacy of 
their celestial hue, and the vast quantity 
of inflorescence usually expanded at the 
same time. It appears to be sufficiently 
hardy to exist through the winter in the 
open air, at least when planted in soil that 
is not too adhesive, or otherwise liable to 
an accumulation of wet. 
But, notwithstanding the large propor- 
tions it acquires when grown in borders in 
the open air under encouraging circum- 
stances, it may easily be rendered more 
dwarf, and hence made available for the 
beds of the flower-garden, by continuing to 
layer the shoots as they exceed the pre- 
scribed height, and thereby producing a 
lateral expansion of the sap, in the form of 
additional flowering branches ; or it may 
also be cultivated in a pot, and flowered 
when not beyond eighteen inches or two 
feet high, when it constitutes a useful ac- 
quisition to the greenhouse, not only for the 
quantity and beauty of its blossoms, but 
also for its capacity for late-blooming. 
It admits of an extensive multiplication 
by cuttings and division of the roots, and 
probably also by seeds. 
The woodcut represents the habit of the plant, growing in one of Mr. Beck's 
slate-boxes. 
