Salvia canescens

Salvia canescens, also known as the hoary sage, is a herbaceous perennial that is endemic to the Caucasus Mountains. The specific epithet, canescens, refers to the off-white hairs covering the leaves. Salvia canescens was first described in 1831 by the Russian botanist Carl Anton von Meyer. The English botanist George Bentham applied the same name to a different species, which he corrected in his 1833 volume of Labiatarum Genera et Species by applying S. canescens Benth. as a synonym of Salvia pallida. In 1992, the Russian botanist Y. L. Menitsky reduced the species Salvia daghestanica, originally described in 1951 by Dmitrii Ivanovich Sosnowsky, to a variety of S. canescens, thus also requiring the autonym S. canescens var. canescens. Salvia canescens var. daghestanica reaches nearly 1 ft (0.30 m) tall and wide, forming a mound with snow-white 1 to 4 in (2.5 to 10.2 cm) leaves that are covered with white hairs on top and bottom. It has royal purple flowers growing in whorls that bloo......read more on Wikipedia.