From the Latin salveo, “I am well,” referring to the medicinal properties of some members of this genus
Species
dorrii
After Clarendon Herbert Dorr (1816-1887), poet, inventor, and son of the captain of the first American ship to anchor in a California port. Dorr purportedly made collections of this plant near Virginia City, Nevada in the mid 1800s.
Desert sage is native to the western United States. It prefers sandy, rocky, or limestone soils on open,
dry slopes, flats and foothills, at elevations of 2500-8800′ (762-2682 m). The title of Zane Grey’s 1912 western novel
Riders of the Purple Sage refers to this species, not sagebrush.
Plants: An upright or spreading, rough-barked
woody shrub 8-31″ (20-80 cm) tall ×
8-20″ (20-50 cm) around.
Leaves: opposite, oval or spoon-shaped, ½-1½″ (1.5-4 cm) long ×
⅛-½″ (5-15 mm) wide. They are widest at the tips, and silver-gray or gray-green in color, due to the
presence of fine hairs. Leaves usually have wavy edges, and emit a strong minty odor when crushed.
Flowers: Pale blue to purple, rarely rose-colored. Flowers form showy clusters.
Each flower is ⅜-½″ (1-1.3 cm) long, with two upper lips and a three-lobed
bottom lip. Flowers appear May through July.
Fruits: Each flower produces four thick-walled gray to red-brown seeds
(achenes). Each seed is 1/16-⅛″ (1.8-3.5 mm) long.