SALVIA PRUNELLOIDES. 
(Prunella-like Sage.) 
Class. 
DECANDRIA. 
Order. 
MONOGYNIA. 
Natural Order ^ 
LABIATE. 
Generic Character.— CaZ?/,^ tubular, ribbed, un- 
equally two-lipped, permanent. Corolla tube dilated 
upwards, compressed ; upper lip concave ; lower lip 
broad, three lobed, the middle lobe largest, cloven. 
Stamens with two divaricated branches, one only bear- 
ing a perfect, oblong, single-celled anther. Germen 
four-cleft. Style curved with the stamens, usually 
longer. Stigma forked. Seeds four, oval, in the bottom 
of the dry converging calyx, — Bon's Gard. and Botany. 
Specifto Character. ■ — Stems herbaceous, nearly 
simple, erect, pilosely pubescent. Leaves petiolate. 
ovate oblong, obtuse, crenated, narrowed at the base, 
green on both surfaces, and nearly glabrous ; floral 
leaves ovate, acuminated, deciduous. Racemes simple, 
on long peduncles. Whorls remote, sub-secund ; upper 
whorls approximate, ten-fiowered. Calyx carapanu- 
late, striated, clothed with silky hairs, having the 
upper lip shortly tridentate, and the teeth of the lower 
lip lanceolate, acute. Corolla about three times longer 
than the calyx, pubescent outside ; tube ventricose, 
equalling the calyx ; middle lobe of the lower lip 
emarginate. St7jle bearded. 
Of the many Salvias described in botanical works, there is decidedly a pre= 
ponderance of species with flowers of a cerulean tint. Some of these now hold a 
deservedly eminent station amongst the summer-garden decorations, and we are 
glad to be enabled to give prominence to another, which, although it has been 
known in Nurseries since 1840, is rarely seen beyond their precincts. 
The comparative obscurity in which it has been fated to continue, may perhaps 
be traced to the introduction about the same time of the more showy Salvia 
patens^ the magnitude and superior loveliness of the flowers of that species having 
completely engrossed the attention of cultivators in the desire so universally 
manifested to possess it, to the almost entire exclusion of all less-favoured com= 
petitors. 
In its habit of growth S. prunelloides is unexceptionable. The stems are 
produced closely, without appearing crowded, and rarely grow more than a few 
inches high, when planted in a border. The foliage is of that happy medium size, 
which has neither the coarseness of some of the larger-growing species, nor yet the 
scantiness of many of the smaller kinds. The plant spreads by means of under= 
ground stems, which develop shoots with great rapidity that soon acquire a flower- 
bearing maturity ; and though the blossoms, individually, are rather minute, yet. 
