Citation: L., Sp. Pl. 27 (1753).

Synonymy: Not Applicable

Common name: Woolly sage, woolly salvia.

Description:
Biennial or perennial herbs to 60 cm high, usually much-branched, with quadrangular stems tough and woolly with long coiled simple hairs at the base while the tomentum is sparser above and with an increasing number of sessile glands; leaves basal, with the petiole 3-7 cm long; blade ovate to elliptic, 10-25 x 5-12 cm, acute and with acute lobes, serrate to irregularly toothed, pustulate, densely woolly and with a few scattered sessile glands at least on the undersurface.

Inflorescence a thyrse without a distinct peduncle, much-branched and candelabrum-shaped, with a few sessile cymose part-inflorescences each with 1 or 2 flowers contained by stiff clasping bracts usually shorter than the calyx and with a spinescent mucro; sepals unequally connate, 13-veined, 10-12 mm long or to 16 mm when fruiting, 2-lipped with a posterior lip slightly curved upwards, with 2 larger lateral lobes and a slightly shorter central one, with the anterior lip deeply 2-lobed, with all lobes spine-tipped, woolly with long and short hairs as well as sessile glands; corolla white, 2-lipped, with the posterior lip longer and the anterior one about as long as the tube, 13-15 mm long, with scattered sessile glands, with the posterior lip erect, hooded and scarcely 2-lobed, with the anterior lip with 2 narrow lateral lobes and a broadly obcordate central one; stamens inserted in the throat of the corolla tube, with filaments glabrous but hairy around them; anthers with 1 fertile cell at the end of a long curved part of the connective which is continued into a flatter part on the other end and without sterile remains of the second cell, with the fertile cell enclosed in the hood of the posterior lip of the corolla; ovary on a thick disc, deeply 4-lobed, with a slender style inserted near the base and curved along the posterior lip of the corolla, with an often unequally 2-fid stigma.

Mericarps broadly obovoid, c. 2.5 mm long, triangular in section but not keeled, with the attachment scar almost circular, small, basal, smooth.

Distribution:  S.Aust.: NL.   N.S.W.   Native to south-eastern Europe, southern Russia and as far as Iran. Conservation status: naturalised Flowering time: Oct. — Feb.

SA Distribution Map based on current data relating to specimens held in the State Herbarium of South Australia

Biology: No text

Author: Not yet available