Species
+

Salvia farinacea Benth.

Mealy Blue Sage, Mealycup Sage, Mealycup sage, blue sage

Climate known 48 photographs Temperate garden plant
Add one to my plants Sow seed

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Salvia farinacea, the mealycup sage, or mealy sage, is a herbaceous perennial native to Nuevo León, Mexico and parts of the United States including Texas and Oklahoma. Violet-blue spikes rest on a compact plant of typically narrow salvia-like leaves; however, the shiny leaves are what set this species apart from most other Salvia, which bear velvety-dull leaves.

Text from Wikipedia, “Salvia farinacea”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Salvia

Salvia is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with just under 1,000 species of shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, Salvia is part of the tribe Mentheae within the subfamily Nepetoideae. One of several genera commonly referred to as sage, it includes two widely used herbs, Salvia officinalis and Salvia rosmarinus.

Text from Wikipedia, “Salvia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family
Lamiaceae
Described by
Benth.
Native to
New Mexico, Texas, Mexico Northeast
Wild records
1496 in range· 303 open

At a glance

Warmest month
34°C
Aug, mean day; nights 24 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
872mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Jun 110 mm (CHELSA)
Light
17–43DLI
mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)
In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person
Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Salvia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to July and September to November in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 872 mm a year, wettest June at 110 mm, driest January at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 43 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -5.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).
Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Salvia amabilis Kunth & C.D.Bouché; Salvia caesia Scheele; Salvia earlei Wooton & Standl.; Salvia farinacea subsp. farinacea; Salvia farinacea subsp. latifolia Shinners and 6 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Salvia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: no season, 70% of the rain takes 8 months (March to July and September to November in the northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads no season: 70% of the year's rain (659 mm of 872 mm) takes 8 months, March to July and September to November. Mean temperature moves 19.2 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: September to January and March to May.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 872 mm a year, wettest June at 110 mm, driest January at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

872 mm a year at the habitat, 659 mm of it March to July and September to November. Wettest month June at 110 mm, driest January at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 616 mm to 1032 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 43 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 17 to 43 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 16, the highest 90th-percentile month 44).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor -5.3 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is -5.3 °C, the absolute minimum -17.1 °C, about 26 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 40.6 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 5.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells 3.3 °C to 6.9 °C), warmest day 34.1 °C in August (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -5.3 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 55 to 59% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

Habitat climate through the yearMean day from 16 °C in Jan to 34 °C in Aug; mean night from 6 °C in Jan to 24 °C in Aug. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 872 mm of rain a year, most in Jun. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 586 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -17.1 °C and the 99th-percentile day 40.6 °C; neither is dated to a month. Beneath: daily light integral and relative humidity through the year, each on its own scale.-20°-10°10°20°30°40°50°frost40.6° 99th-percentile day (undated)-17.1° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 17–43RH 55–59 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 586 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale
Figures by month
JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
Day °C16 / 14–1718 / 16–2022 / 20–2326 / 25–2729 / 28–3032 / 31–3334 / 32–3434 / 33–3531 / 30–3226 / 25–2721 / 19–2216 / 14–18
Night °C6 / 3–77 / 5–910 / 9–1214 / 13–1619 / 18–2022 / 21–2324 / 22–2524 / 22–2521 / 19–2216 / 15–1711 / 9–126 / 4–8
Rain mm50 / 27–6155 / 32–7270 / 44–9163 / 48–87101 / 77–131110 / 80–12262 / 48–8554 / 50–6979 / 68–90105 / 67–12169 / 37–8354 / 29–71
DLI19 / 18–2123 / 23–2629 / 29–3236 / 35–3937 / 37–4141 / 40–4343 / 43–4441 / 40–4134 / 33–3426 / 25–2720 / 19–2217 / 16–19
RH %57 / 55–5857 / 54–5857 / 53–5856 / 53–5859 / 56–6159 / 56–6057 / 53–5855 / 52–5756 / 54–5857 / 55–5858 / 55–5857 / 55–58

Each figure is the median across the 586 grid cells holding the 1404 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1194:1631 (30.275, -98.425). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -17.1 °C, 1st-percentile night -5.3 °C, 99th-percentile day 40.6 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 586 distinct grid cells holding the 1404 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1194:1631 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 30.50_-98.125, lapse-corrected +56 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 383 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.
Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.
NativeNew Mexico, Texas, Mexico Northeast· introduced: India, Oklahoma, Connecticut, Ohio, Florida, Louisiana, El Salvador, Guatemala, Trinidad-Tobago, Venezuela
Kew's description“perennial or subshrub” · “desert or dry shrubland”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker29.876, -98.485 · in the densest population, 1065 records (71% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1496 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 303 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 40 km away. 50 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 92 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.
The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1496 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Salvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinaceaSalvia farinacea

Photographs: (c) Turner Brockman, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA); (c) desertnaturalist, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Annika Lindqvist, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Samantha Knight, some rights reserved (CC BY) (2); (c) Craig Hensley, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) CK2AZ, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Salvia farinacea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Haemagglutinins from Salvia
G. W. G. Bird, June Wingham (1974) · Vox Sanguinis
Performance of Selected Herbaceous Annual Ornamentals Grown at Decreasing Levels of Irrigation
D. Yvette Henson, Steven E. Newman, David E. Hartley (2006) · HortScience
Detoxification of Aflatoxin B1 and Ochratoxin A Using Salvia farinacea and Azadirachta indica Water Extract and Application in Meat Products
Gamal M. Hamad, Adel Abdelrazek Abdelazim Mohdaly, Baher A. El-Nogoumy, Mohamed Fawzy Ramadan (2021) · Applied Biochemistry and Biotechnology
Salvifarin and salvifaricin, neo-clerodane diterpenoids from salvia farinacea
Giuseppe Savona, Demetrio Raffa, Mauricio Bruno, Blanca Rodríguez (1983) · Phytochemistry
The Health-Benefits and Phytochemical Profile of Salvia apiana and Salvia farinacea var. Victoria Blue Decoctions
Andrea F. Afonso, Olívia R. Pereira, Ângela Fernandes, Ricardo C. Calhelha (2019) · Antioxidants
Growth, Gas Exchange, and Chlorophyll Fluorescence of Four Ornamental Herbaceous Perennials during Water Deficit Conditions
Terri W. Starman, Leonardo Lombardini (2006) · Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science
Nutrient Disorders of ‘Evolution’ Mealy-cup Sage
Jared Barnes, Brian E. Whipker, I. McCall, Jonathan M. Frantz (2012) · HortTechnology
The correct structure of salvifaricin a cis neo-clerodane diterpenoid from Salvia farinacea
Blanca Rodríguez, Conrad Pascual, Giuseppe Savona (1984) · Phytochemistry
Salvifarin, x-ray structure determination of a cis neo-clerodane diterpenoid from salvia farinacea
Liliana Eguren, J. Fayos, Áurea Perales, Giuseppe Savona (1984) · Phytochemistry
Use of photoselective plastic films to control growth of three perennial salvias.
Sandra B. Wilson, Nihal C. Rajapakse (2001) · Journal of Applied Horticulture

Similar habitat climate the 6 species whose habitat climate is nearest this one's: mean day and night, month by month, and rain on a log scale, in calendar order, so a habitat with the same seasons six months out is far, not near. Nothing else counts: not range, not family.

Other Salvia 27 in the reference

History & registers

Where this page came from built 2026-09-20 · dossier v2 · node
gbif.species answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.synonyms answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
gbif.vernacular answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (offline re-derivation; the backbone was not asked)
wcvp.distribution answered
gbif.occurrences answeredGBIF occurrence download https://doi.org/10.15468/dl.3h4zam
climate answered
wikidata answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
wikipedia answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.taxon not asked
inat.photos.wild answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped
inat.photos.cultivated nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
commons nothing to reportcarried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive); that build: carried from build of 2026-09-19 (rederive)
gbif.media answered
openalex answeredcarried from build of 2026-09-19; this build: skipped

Every upstream is recorded as having answered, reported nothing, or refused. Only “nothing to report” is ever shown as an absence. Records came from 50 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.