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Support the Flora of the Southeastern US

2024 has been a banner year for making the best flora we can imagine. We've created:
With financial support from people like you, we are aiming even higher in 2025. Together we can accomplish all this: Vote on our 2025 priorities
  • Add Global Conservation Ranks (GRanks) vote
  • Professional graphic keys (polyclaves) to individual families/genera vote
  • 2 new FloraQuest apps: Florida & Mid-South vote
  • Image overlays highlighting diagnostic characters with arrows vote
  • iNaturalist integration in FloraQuest vote
Write-in vote: vote
We've set a goal of recruiting 200 ongoing supporters to donate $15 or more each month in 2025. Please help us reach this goal and make next year's flora even better:

Click the number at the start of a key lead to highlight both that lead and its corresponding lead. Click again to show only the two highlighted leads. Click a third time to return to the full key with the selected leads still highlighted.

Key to Salvia

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1 Leaves predominantly basal.
  2 Veins of the 3 upper calyx lobes parallel, the lobes themselves minute and widely-spaced (> 1 mm between the 2 lateral teeth), separated by flattish sinuses; basal leaves lobed; [native, though weedy, common throughout our area]
  2 Veins of the 3 upper calyx lobes converging, the lobes themselves minute and spaced within a distance of 1 mm; basal leaves lobed or toothed; cauline leaves toothed (rarely lobed); [exotic weeds, rarely naturalized in our area].
    3 Upper corolla-lip strongly arched; leaves serrate
    3 Upper corolla-lip straight; leaves lobed
1 Leaves predominantly cauline, not lobed.
      4 Leaves rhombic-ovate, the base cordate, subcordate, truncate, or broadly cuneate.
        5 Petiole not clearly differentiated from the leaf blade (leaf tissue decurrent on the petiole for most or all its length); corolla blue
          6 Leaves with cuneate bases extending into a winged petiole; plants typically with both terminal and axillary inflorescences; corolla 7-12 mm long; flowering Aug-Oct
          6 Leaves with abruptly truncate bases into a winged petiole; plants typically with a single terminal inflorescence; corolla 10-17 mm long; flowering Apr-May
        5 Petiole clearly differentiated from the leaf blade; corolla blue, white, or scarlet.
             7 Corolla scarlet; larger leaves 3-6.5 cm long
             7 Corolla blue or whitish; leaves 5-20 cm long
               8 Upper calyx lip > ½× as long as the calyx tube; flowers 4-12 per node; leaves (8-) 12-20 cm long
               8 Upper calyx lip < 1/3× as long as the calyx tube; flowers 12-30 per node; leaves 5-10 cm long
                   10 Leaves canescent, gray; [introduced, rarely persistent from cultivation in gardens]
                   10 Leaves puberulent, green; [native, of dry woodlands from sc. NC southward and westward].
                     11 Flowers 2 (-4) per node; corolla 8-12 mm long; annual
                     11 Flowers 6-10 flowers per node; corolla > 13 mm long; perennial
                       12 Stem usually with sparse, antrorse or somewhat spreading pubescence; calyx with antrorse hairs limited to major veins; flowers of mature inflorescences spaced out, most internodes elongate and ranging up to 25 (-34) mm; [Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Plain and adjacent piedmont, from south-central NC to central FL to southeast LA]
                       12 Stem usually with dense, retrorse pubescence; calyx with dense antrorse pubescence; flowers of mature inflorescences densely arranged, internodes between flowers very short, only the lowermost 1-3 internodes elongate and ranging up to 12 (-17) mm; [inland and prairie sites, ranging from IL, IA, NE, and e. CO south to nw. GA, n. AL, ne. MS, LA, and se. and c. TX]