Salvia microphylla Kunth
Much branched, aromatic shrub to c. 1.5 m high, with short hairs, these dense on young parts. Petiole 1-3 cm long. Lamina to 9 × 5 cm, sometimes as small as 10 × 7.5 mm on flowering shoots, ovate, ovate-oblong or elliptic, grey-tomentose below, and hairs mainly confined to veins above, crenate-serrate, or crenulate-serrulate on smaller lvs; base cuneate to rounded; apex obtuse to acute. Infl. to 6 cm tall, densely clothed in glandular hairs; verticels usually of 2 fls; pedicels slender, often long; bracts small and caducous. Calyx 10-13 mm long, tubular-campanulate, glandular and puberulent, usually purplish above; upper lip slightly > lower; teeth c. ⅓ length of tube. Corolla 2-3 cm long, crimson; upper lip ± parallel to tube, hairy outside, especially towards apex; lower lip > upper. Stamens with long, broad, upper connective arms and much shorter filaments. Nutlets not seen.
N.: N. Auckland (forest track near the main headquarters of Waipoua State Forest and a casual escape from cultivation in waste places elsewhere in the Province).
Mexico 1978
FL Jan-Dec.
S. microphylla is a very common garden shrub throughout N.Z. It often persists for many years in abandoned or neglected gardens but rarely spreads because of the lack of viable seed.
Wild and most cultivated N.Z. plants correspond to var. neurepia (Fern.) Epling, which has larger lvs than var. microphylla. Other tropical American spp. with scarlet fls are widely cultivated in N.Z. Those which might be expected to escape occasionally are S. fulgens Cav., cardinal sage, S. rutilans Carrière, pineapple sage, and S. splendens Sell, scarlet bedding sage. S. microphylla has also been known in N.Z. as S. grahamii.
