Salvia dolomitica

Salvia dolomitica is a robust and hardy shrub typically reaching 2 m in height. The evergreen, somewhat herbaceous plant has aromatic leaves covered in greyish hairs.

The pale lilac or pink flowers grow in a few whorls on erect stalks, the whorls usually densely together. The two-lipped, flaring calyx is dull purple, conspicuous and much longer-lived than the corolla. It has a three-lobed upper lip and a larger, two-lobed lower one. The calyx is coarsely hairy and darker than the corolla. It enlarges during fruiting and only drops off after the seed. Flowering happens in spring to midsummer, sometimes to early autumn.

The plants are found in Mpumalanga and Limpopo in a fairly small distribution.

The habitat is dolomitic outcrops in grassland at elevations from 1150 m to 1900 m. The species is not considered to be threatened in its habitat early in the twenty first century (Manning, 2009; http://pza.sanbi.org; http://redlist.sanbi.org).