Salvia disermas flowers

This Salvia disermas plant of the Little Karoo near Barrydale is flowering white rather than the blue (or mauve) that brought the species the common name of large blue sage. Two to about four flowers occur in each whorl of the inflorescence spike. Buds, open flowers and old ones that have already lost their corollas form the whorls.

The calyx is densely, if unevenly covered in long, silvery hairs; hairier than the outside surfaces of the upper lips of the corollas. The white style curves with the hooded upper lip, exserted in the older flower but not (yet) showing both of its two lobes. The two anthers appear below the style, further exserted in the lower, possibly older flower.

The lower lip is broad in its bowl-shaped central lobe, the laterals small and flipper-like. The upper lip is narrow and tall, consistent with general sage flower shape (Manning, 2009; Shearing and Van Heerden, 2008; iNaturalist).