Salvia Pratensis L. Meadow Sage. (Plate XXIX)

A handsome plant 1-2 feet high with shortly stalked root-leaves, ovate heart-shaped or oblong, 3 to 5 inches long, coarsely toothed and much wrinkled; stem-leaves smaller, mostly sessile. Flowers in a long, terminal, simple or branched spike, composed of whorls of large rich blue or deep mauve flowers. Upper lip of calyx slightly 3-toothed.

Plate XXIX.

1. AJUGA PYRAMIDALIS.

2. EUPHRASIA LUTEA.

3. SALVIA GLUTINOSA.

4. SALVIA PRATENSIS.

4/7 NATURAL SIZE.

Dry pastures and mountain-sides, common and often in large colonies in sub-alpine districts, but being nevertheless one of the most beautiful of Alpine flowers. June, July, and again sometimes in autumn.

Distribution

Central and Southern Europe to the Caucasus, and northwards to Sweden, Northern France, and Kent.

Salvia Glutinosa L. (Plate XXIX)

Cymes 2-3 flowered; flowers dirty yellow, very large, soon fading; upper lip of calyx entire. Leaves cordate hastate, pubescent, longly petioled, large, crenate-dentate. Stems 2-3 feet high, erect, viscous above. Calyx also covered with viscid, glandular hairs.

Mountain woods and thickets in the sub-alpine region. June to August.

Distribution

Alps, Jura, Cevennes, Eastern Pyrenees, Corsica, Europe and Asia from Spain to the Himalaya.

Salvia Verticillata L. Whorled Salvia

Flowers small, pale blue or mauve or rarely white, shortly pedi-celled, in dense whorls forming elongated spikes. Calyx violet, hairy, upper lobe trifid. Leaves petioled, broadly ovate-cordate, irregularly crenate-dentate, soft and green. Whole plant usually hairy and disagreeably scented, Waste places, dry hills, etc. June to August.

In August, 1911, we observed several large clumps of this plant on the embankment of the new electric railway just below Argentine at the unusual height of about 4000 feet above the sea.

Distribution

Central and Southern Europe; Western Asia.

Calamintha L. Calamintha Alpina L. Alpine Calamint. (Plate XXI)

Stem prostrate or ascending, simple or branched, downy like the calyx. Leaves ovate or elliptical, acute, slightly serrate, usually glabrous. Flowers reddish purple in few-flowered axillary cymes. Calyx open in fruit with spreading teeth, and clearly 2-lipped. Very rarely the flowers are pink as in the figure, this specimen coming from near Le Planet, above Argentiere.

Sunny, stony, Alpine and sub-alpine slopes, descending to the plains of Switzerland. June to August.

Distribution

Alps, Jura, Pyrenees, Carpathians.

Calamintha Nepetoides Jord

Plant about 2 feet high, covered with greyish hairs, and pleasantly scented. Leaves ovate, serrated, petioled. Flowers pink, rather small, in very lax panicles or whorls on branched peduncles longer than the leaves. Calyx long, with almost equal teeth, shortly ciliate, 2 of the teeth being narrower and rather longer than the 3 others.

Dry, stony places in the lower calcareous mountains. June to September.

Distribution

Alps, Jura, Eastern Pyrenees, Corsica, Southern Europe, Asia Minor.