Salvia blancoana

Salvia blancoana is an aromatic evergreen perennial herb to small subshrub in the family Lamiaceae endemic to the southern and eastern Iberian Peninsula and adjacent Mediterranean North Africa, particularly the Baetic mountains of southern Spain. Plants form low spreading clumps 30-60 cm tall, with branched four-angled stems woody at the base and herbaceous above, clothed in dense soft white-tomentose hairs throughout. Leaves are mostly basal, opposite, oblong-lanceolate to ovate, 4-10 cm long and 1-3 cm wide, with finely crenate or scalloped margins, deeply rugose with a network of impressed veins on the upper surface, and densely white-tomentose beneath; they are intensely aromatic when crushed, giving a strong sage-camphor-rosemary fragrance. The inflorescence is a slender terminal whorled spike with widely separated 4-8-flowered verticillasters and small lanceolate bracts. Flowers are typical sage shape, two-lipped, 18-25 mm long, with a pale violet to bluish-purple corolla and an enlarged, ribbed, two-lipped calyx tinged purplish. Flowering occurs from spring to early summer. The species is closely related to Salvia officinalis and is sometimes treated as a subspecies (S. officinalis subsp. lavandulifolia or S. lavandulifolia) within an aggregate.