SALVIA PATENS. 
(spreading sage.) 
class. order. 
DIANDRIA. MONOGYNIA. 
NATURAL ORDER. 
LAMIACEiE. 
Generic Character. — Calyx two-lipped, three to five toothed. Corolla two-lipped ; upper lip helmet- 
shaped, lower one three-lobed. Filaments with an appendage at their base, often bearing spurious 
anthers. Pericardium itfdehiscent, with four one-celled divisions. 
Specific Character. — Plant perennial, evergreen, herbaceous, hairy in all its parts. Stems numerous, 
nearly cubical, partially declinate at the base, ascending, slightly branched. Leaves opposite, petio- 
late, partially hastate, rugose, three-lobed; side lobes small, ovate, obtuse, middle one largest, 
unequally ovate, crenate, acuminate. Bractece linear, acute. Flowers spicate, terminal, decussate. 
Calyx bifid ; segments light brown towards the apex, persistent. Corolla deep blue ; upper lip 
invertedly boat-shaped, slightly ascending; lower one pendent, spreading, and enlarging towards the 
extremity into two broad roundish lobes. 
We have pleasure in submitting to our readers a correct delineation of a plant 
which appears likely to engage, in the ensuing season, no inconsiderable portion of 
popular attention. To ensure a due estimation of its merits, we need not appeal 
to the uniform testimony of every writer who has hitherto noticed it, though, 
in this respect, few plants present stronger claims to consideration. We rest 
our recommendation on higher grounds, and at once direct the reader to the 
annexed plate ; of which, however, we think it proper to observe, that the 
colour of the flower is considerably less brilliant than it is naturally, since it is 
found almost impossible successfully to imitate its transcendently intense and 
dazzling hue. 
To illustrate the accompanying beautiful figure, we may remark that the spike 
of flowers therein represented is far from being a solitary ornament to a plant of 
this species. From the summit of each of the principal stems, (which in a large 
plant would doubtless be numerous,) and also, though at a s6mewhat later 
period, from the extremities of all the lateral shoots, a similar number of flowers, 
of equal size and splendour, is produced. Ample evidence of its propensity to 
flower was afforded us during the autumn of last year in the nursery of Messrs. 
Low and Co., Clapton. Although much mutilated by the continued process of 
decapitating its shoots for the purposes of propagation, it did not cease blooming 
vol. VI.— NO. LXI. B 
