Salvia dorrii (Desert sage)

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Salvia dorrii (Kellogg) Abrams

Desert sage, tobacco sage, door’s sage

Kingdom	Plantae	Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae
Subkingdom	Tracheobionta	Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients
Division	Magnoliophyta	Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms
Class	Magnoliopsida	Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves
Subclass	Asteridae	A large class that encompasses asters
Order	Lamiales	Aromatic herbs and shrubs, including lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, mint, basil, and rosemary
Family	Lamiaceae	Mint family
Genus	Salvia	From the Latin salveo, “I am well,” referring to the medicinal properties of some members of this genus
Species	dorrii	After Clarendon Herbert Dorr (1816-1887), poet, inventor, and son of the captain of the first American ship to anchor in a California port. Dorr purportedly made collections of this plant near Virginia City, Nevada in the mid 1800s.

About plant names...

Desert sage is native to the western United States. It prefers sandy, rocky, or limestone soils on open, dry slopes, flats and foothills, at elevations of 2500-8800' (762-2682 m). The title of Zane Grey’s 1912 western novel Riders of the Purple Sage refers to this species, not sagebrush.

Plants: An upright or spreading, rough-barked woody shrub 8-31" (20-80 cm) tall × 8-20" (20-50 cm) around.

Leaves: opposite, oval or spoon-shaped, ½-1½" (1.5-4 cm) long × ⅛-½" (5-15 mm) wide. They are widest at the tips, and silver-gray or gray-green in color, due to the presence of fine hairs. Leaves usually have wavy edges, and emit a strong minty odor when crushed.

Flowers: Pale blue to purple, rarely rose-colored. Flowers form showy clusters. Each flower is ⅜-½" (1-1.3 cm) long, with two upper lips and a three-lobed bottom lip. Flowers appear May through July.

Fruits: Each flower produces four thick-walled gray to red-brown seeds (achenes). Each seed is ¹/₁₆-⅛" (1.8-3.5 mm) long.

Online References:

The USDA Plants Database (PDF)

Www.americansouthwest.net

Thenatureniche.com

The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

The Jepson Manual

5/2/2018 · Cottonwood Spring, Joshua Tree National Park, California
≈ 18 × 14" (46 × 34 cm) ID is uncertain

4/30/2018 · Kelbaker Road, Mojave National Preserve, California
≈ 1¾ × 1¾" (4.5 × 4.9 cm)

5/3/2018 · Park Blvd., Joshua Tree National Park
≈ 18 × 13" (45 × 33 cm)

4/30/2018 · Kelbaker Road, Mojave National Preserve, California
≈ 3 × 2" (7.9 × 5.8 cm)

4/30/2018 · Kelbaker Road, Mojave National Preserve, California
≈ 5 × 7" (13 × 17 cm)

Salvia dorrii description by Thomas H. Kent, last updated 25 May 2020.

5/3/2018 · Park Blvd., Joshua Tree National Park
≈ 4½ × 4" (11 × 9.9 cm)

8/9/2011 · By Jacquelyn Boyt

4/30/2018 · Kelbaker Road, Mojave National Preserve, California
≈ 6 × 4" (15 × 11 cm)

5/3/2018 · Park Blvd., Joshua Tree National Park
≈ 4 × 6" (11 × 16 cm)

5/1/2018 · Joshua Tree National Park Visitor Center, Twentynine Palms, California
≈ 28 × 21" (71 × 52 cm) ID is uncertain

5/3/2018 · Park Blvd., Joshua Tree National Park
≈ 18 × 12" (46 × 31 cm)

4/30/2018 · Kelbaker Road, Mojave National Preserve, California
≈ 3½ × 5" (9.1 × 13 cm)

5/3/2018 · Park Blvd., Joshua Tree National Park
≈ 19 × 12" (47 × 31 cm)

Range:

About this map...