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Black Sage

 
Black Sage

 
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Black Sage
 
 
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Black Sage (Salvia mellifera) is a small, highly aromatic, evergreen
Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
 shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
 of the genus Salvia
Salvia

Salvia is a genus of plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is one of three genus commonly referred to as sage. When used without modifiers, sage generally refers to Salvia officinalis ; however, it can be used with modifiers to refer to any member of the genus....
 (the sages) native to California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, USA and Baja California
Baja California

Baja California is the northernmost States of Mexico of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California....
, Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
. It is common in the coastal sage scrub
Coastal sage scrub

Coastal sage scrub is a low scrubland plant community found in the California chaparral and woodlands terrestrial ecoregion of coastal California and northern Baja California....
 of Southern California
Southern California

Southern California, or So Cal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers on the cities of Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, San Bernardino, California, and Riverside, California....
 and northern Baja California. Black sage has a dark appearance, especially during drought.

k Sage is a perennial
Perennial plant

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants....
 shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
 that grows approximately 1-2 m tall. It is covered with simple hairs with some glandular hairs, which makes it highly aromatic.






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Encyclopedia


Black Sage (Salvia mellifera) is a small, highly aromatic, evergreen
Evergreen

In botany, an evergreen plant is a plant having leaf all year round. This contrasts with deciduous plants, which completely lose their foliage for part of the year....
 shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
 of the genus Salvia
Salvia

Salvia is a genus of plants in the mint family, Lamiaceae. It is one of three genus commonly referred to as sage. When used without modifiers, sage generally refers to Salvia officinalis ; however, it can be used with modifiers to refer to any member of the genus....
 (the sages) native to California
California

California is a U.S. state on the West Coast of the United States of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean. It is bordered by Oregon to the north, Nevada to the east, Arizona to the southeast, and to the south the Mexico state of Baja California....
, USA and Baja California
Baja California

Baja California is the northernmost States of Mexico of Mexico. Before becoming a state in 1953, the area was known as the North Territory of Baja California....
, Mexico
Mexico

The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federalism constitutionalism republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico....
. It is common in the coastal sage scrub
Coastal sage scrub

Coastal sage scrub is a low scrubland plant community found in the California chaparral and woodlands terrestrial ecoregion of coastal California and northern Baja California....
 of Southern California
Southern California

Southern California, or So Cal, is defined as the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its population centers on the cities of Los Angeles, California, San Diego, California, San Bernardino, California, and Riverside, California....
 and northern Baja California. Black sage has a dark appearance, especially during drought.

Morphology

Black Sage is a perennial
Perennial plant

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants....
 shrub
Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
 that grows approximately 1-2 m tall. It is covered with simple hairs with some glandular hairs, which makes it highly aromatic. The leaves
Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
 are oblong-elliptic to obovate in shape and are about 2.5–7 cm long. The upper surface of the leaf is somewhat glabrous, while the lower surface of the leaf is hairy.

The inflorescence
Inflorescence

An inflorescence is a group or cluster of flowers arranged on a Plant stem that is composed of a main branch or a complicated arrangement of branches....
 occurs in 1.6–4 cm wide clusters. The flower
Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s are usually a pale blue or lavender color, and rarely a pale rose color. The upper lip of the flower is 2-lobed. The style and stamen
Stamen

The stamen is the male organ of a flower. Each stamen generally has a stalk called the filament , and, on top of the filament, an anther , and pollen sacs, called sporangium....
s are slightly exserted. The fruit
Fruit

The term fruit has different meanings dependent on context, and the term is not synonymous in food preparation and biology. In botany, which is the scientific study of plants, fruits are the ripened Ovary of flowering plants....
 produced by the black sage is a schizocarp
Schizocarp

A schizocarp is a dry fruit that develops from multiple carpels. When mature it splits up into one-seeded mericarps. The mericarp is either:...
 composed of four 2–3 mm brown nutlet
Nutlet

Nutlet may refer to one of the following.*A small Nut .*In botany, a nutlet is a pyrena or pyrene, which is a seed covered by a stony layer, such as the kernel of a drupe....
s.

Ecology

Black sage grows in the coastal sage scrub
Coastal sage scrub

Coastal sage scrub is a low scrubland plant community found in the California chaparral and woodlands terrestrial ecoregion of coastal California and northern Baja California....
 and lower chaparral
Chaparral

Chaparral is a shrubland or Heath plant community found primarily in the U.S. state of California and in the northern portion of Lower California, Mexico....
 plant communities. It occurs from 0–1200 meters elevation. It needs about 38 centimeters of rainfall. Black Sage is able to grow on a variety of different soils derived from sandstone
Sandstone

Sandstone is a sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-size mineral or rock Particle size . Most sandstone is composed of quartz and/or feldspar because these are the most common minerals in the Earth's crust ....
, shale
Shale

Shale is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clay minerals or muds. It is characterized by thin laminae breaking with an irregular curving fracture, often splintery and usually parallel to the often-indistinguishable bedding plane....
, granite
Granite

Granite is a common and widely occurring type of Intrusion , felsic, igneous rock rock . Granite has a medium to coarse texture, occasionally with some individual crystals larger than the groundmass forming a rock known as Porphyry ....
, serpentinite
Serpentinite

Serpentinite is a Rock composed of one or more serpentine minerals. Minerals in this group are formed by serpentinization, a hydration and metamorphic rock transformation of ultramafic rock from the Earth's Mantle ....
, and gabbro
Gabbro

Gabbro refers to a large group of dark, coarse-grained, intrusive igneous rock chemically equivalent to basalt. The rocks are Intrusive, formed when molten magma is trapped beneath the Earth's surface and cools into a crystalline mass....
 or basalt
Basalt

Basalt is a common extrusive volcanic rock. It is usually gray to black and fine-grained due to rapid cooling of lava at the surface of a planet....
. Black Sage is semi-deciduous
Deciduous

Deciduous means falling off at maturity or tending to fall off and is typically used in reference to trees or shrubs that lose their leaves seasonally and to the shedding of other plant structures such as petals after flowering or fruit when ripe....
, depending on the location and severity of drought
Drought

A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation ....
, and shallow rooted. Black Sage is drought tolerant by leaf curling rather than drought avoiding through leaf drop.

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