Salvia Digitalioides

Foxglove sage is a rare Chinese perennial with a basal clump of thick, velvety oblong leaves and softly hairy flowering stems. Broad yellow tubular flowers are dusted with purple spots on the lower lip and held in spaced whorls above green calyces traced by purple veins. The unusual combination of pale yellow, spotted throats and woolly foliage gives Salvia digitaloides a character closer to a small foxglove than a familiar blue sage. Native to dry pine woods and grassy highland slopes in south-western China, it appreciates cool, drained soil.