''Salvia nemorosa'', the woodland sage, Balkan clary, blue sage or wild sage, is a hardy

herbaceous Herbaceous plants are vascular plants that have no persistent woody stems above ground. This broad category of plants includes many perennials, and nearly all annuals and biennials. Definitions of "herb" and "herbaceous" The fourth edition of t ...

perennial A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives more than two years. The term ('' per-'' + '' -ennial'', "through the years") is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter-lived annuals and biennials. The term is also wide ...

plant

native Native may refer to: People * Jus soli, citizenship by right of birth * Indigenous peoples, peoples with a set of specific rights based on their historical ties to a particular territory ** Native Americans (disambiguation) In arts and entert ...

to a wide area of central Europe and Western Asia. It is an attractive plant that is easy to grow and propagate, with the result that it has been passed around by gardeners for many years. Its wide distribution, long history, and the ease with which it hybridizes have resulted in many

cultivar A cultivar is a type of cultivated plant that people have selected for desired traits and when propagated retain those traits. Methods used to propagate cultivars include: division, root and stem cuttings, offsets, grafting, tissue culture, ...

s and hybrids—along with problems in clearly identifying the

hybrid Hybrid may refer to: Science * Hybrid (biology), an offspring resulting from cross-breeding ** Hybrid grape, grape varieties produced by cross-breeding two ''Vitis'' species ** Hybridity, the property of a hybrid plant which is a union of two dif ...

s and their relationship with ''S. nemorosa''. It was named and described by

Carl Linnaeus Carl Linnaeus (; 23 May 1707 – 10 January 1778), also known after his ennoblement in 1761 as Carl von Linné Blunt (2004), p. 171. (), was a Swedish botanist, zoologist, taxonomist, and physician who formalised binomial nomenclature, the ...

in 1762, with ''nemorosa'' ("of woods") referring to its typical habitat in groves and woods. In northern Britain, ''Salvia nemorosa'' and ''

Salvia pratensis ''Salvia pratensis'', the meadow clary or meadow sage, is a species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, native to Europe, western Asia and northern Africa. The Latin specific epithet ''pratensis'' means "of meadows", referring to its ...

'' are both in danger of disappearing due to depredation from

slug Slug, or land slug, is a common name for any apparently shell-less terrestrial gastropod mollusc. The word ''slug'' is also often used as part of the common name of any gastropod mollusc that has no shell, a very reduced shell, or only a smal ...

Description

The many inflorescences have closely spaced whorls of small flowers with brightly colored calyces.

Cultivation

There are numerous cultivars widely grown in horticulture. Many of them are hardy to –18 °C., with flowers ranging in color from violet, to violet-blue, rosy pink, and even white. All are perennial, with numerous leafy stems growing from the base at the beginning of summer. The plant prefers full sun, good drainage, and moderate weekly watering. The plant is hardy to

USDA Hardiness Zones A hardiness zone is a geographic area defined as having a certain average annual minimum temperature, a factor relevant to the survival of many plants. In some systems other statistics are included in the calculations. The original and most wide ...

Zones 4–8.

AGM cultivars

In the UK the following cultivars have gained the

Royal Horticultural Society The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS), founded in 1804 as the Horticultural Society of London, is the UK's leading gardening charity. The RHS promotes horticulture through its five gardens at Wisley (Surrey), Hyde Hall (Essex), Harlow Carr (Nort ...

Award of Garden Merit The Award of Garden Merit (AGM) is a long-established annual award for plants by the British Royal Horticultural Society (RHS). It is based on assessment of the plants' performance under UK growing conditions. History The Award of Garden Merit ...

:- * 'Amethyst' * 'Blauhügel' (Blue hill) * ‘Caradonna’ * 'Lubecca' * 'Mainacht' (May night) * 'Ostfriesland' ('East Friesland') * 'Porzellan' (Porcelain) * 'Tänzerin' (Dancer) * 'Viola Klose'

Phytochemistry

The word 'salvia' strings from the Latin word, 'salvare' which it is translated to "health". Because the woodland sage, or 'salvia nemorosa' is part of the salvia species, it means that this is a medicinal plant. Places, such as Russia, tend to use 'salvia nemorosa' to help treat diarrhea as well as hemorrhages. Leaves of ''Salvia nemorosa'' have been used in Turkish medicine to stop bleeding by applying externally.

Diterpenes Diterpenes are a class of chemical compounds composed of four isoprene units, often with the molecular formula C20H32. They are biosynthesized by plants, animals and fungi via the HMG-CoA reductase pathway, with geranylgeranyl pyrophosphate being ...

and

triterpenes Triterpenes are a class of chemical compounds composed of three terpene units with the molecular formula C30H48; they may also be thought of as consisting of six isoprene units. Animals, plants and fungi all produce triterpenes, including squale ...

have been isolated from aerial parts of ''S. nemorosa'': nemorone, nemorosin, horminone, 7-acetylhorminone, salvinemorol, megastigmane

glycosides In chemistry, a glycoside is a molecule in which a sugar is bound to another functional group via a glycosidic bond. Glycosides play numerous important roles in living organisms. Many plants store chemicals in the form of inactive glycosides. ...

( salvionosides A, B and C), pachystazone, salvipisone,

α-amyrin The amyrins are three closely related natural chemical compounds of the triterpene class. They are designated α-amyrin (ursane skeleton), β-amyrin (oleanane skeleton) and δ-amyrin. Each is a pentacyclic triterpenol with the chemical formula C ...

, ursolic and

oleanolic acid Oleanolic acid or oleanic acid is a naturally occurring pentacyclic triterpenoid related to betulinic acid. It is widely distributed in food and plants where it exists as a free acid or as an aglycone of triterpenoid saponins. Natural occurre ...

s, stigmast-7-en-3-one, 24-methylenecycloartanol, stigmast-4-en-3-one,

β-sitosterol β-sitosterol (beta-sitosterol) is one of several phytosterols (plant sterols) with chemical structures similar to that of cholesterol. It is a white, waxy powder with a characteristic odor, and is one of the components of the food additive E499. ...

, stigmast-7-enol, as well as

flavonoids Flavonoids (or bioflavonoids; from the Latin word ''flavus'', meaning yellow, their color in nature) are a class of polyphenolic secondary metabolites found in plants, and thus commonly consumed in the diets of humans. Chemically, flavonoids ...

salvigenin, eupatilin,

apigenin Apigenin (4′,5,7-trihydroxyflavone), found in many plants, is a natural product belonging to the flavone class that is the aglycone of several naturally occurring glycosides. It is a yellow crystalline solid that has been used to dye wool. S ...

and

luteolin Luteolin is a flavone, a type of flavonoid, with a yellow crystalline appearance. Luteolin is the principal yellow dye compound that is obtained from the plant ''Reseda luteola'', which has been used as a source of the dye since at least the fir ...

. Ulubelen, Topçu, Sönmez, Eris. Terpenoids from ''Salvia nemorosa. Phytochemistry'' (1994). Vol. 35. No. 4, pp. 1065-1067.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q159121 nemorosa Flora of Europe Flora of Western Asia Bahadori, M. B., Asghari, B., Dinparast, L., Zengin, G., Sarikurkcu, C., Abbas-Mohammadi, M., & Bahadori, S. (2017). Salvia nemorosa L.: A novel source of bioactive agents with functional connections. LWT, 75, 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lwt.2016.08.048