Salvia Ringens

Salvia ringens is a striking Balkan perennial associated with Mount Olympus and other rocky mountain habitats. A low basal clump of divided, grey-green leaves sends up wine-flushed stems bearing widely spaced whorls of exceptionally large violet-blue flowers. The specific name ringens means gaping, referring to the broad open mouth of each two-lipped bloom. Grown in English gardens before 1913, it later disappeared from cultivation and was rediscovered in the late twentieth century. Hardy, drought tolerant and long lived, it is a distinctive sage for sunny gravel planting.