Species
+

Salvia sclarea L.

Clary, Clary-Sage, Europe sage, European sage

Climate known 92 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 sclarea, the clary or clary sage, is a biennial (short-lived) herbaceous perennial in the genus Salvia. It is native to the northern Mediterranean Basin and to some areas in north Africa and Central Asia. The plant has long been cultivated as an herb and is currently grown for its essential oil.

Text from Wikipedia, “Salvia sclarea”, 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
L.
Native to
Corse, France, Portugal +29
Wild records
1471 in range· 1148 open

At a glance

Warmest month
25°C
Jul, mean day; nights 15 °C (CHELSA)
Rain
814mm/yr
12 wet months · peak Oct 87 mm (CHELSA)
Light
9–42DLI
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 (September to January and April to June in the northern hemisphere). Habitat rain 814 mm a year, wettest October at 87 mm, driest July at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 42 mol/m²/day. Cold floor -3.0 °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 Aethiopis sclarea (L.) Fourr.; Aethiopis sclarea (L.) Opiz; Salvia altilabrosa Pan; Salvia altilabrosa Pau, 1918; Salvia bracteata Sims, 1822 and 12 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 (September to January and April to June 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 (600 mm of 814 mm) takes 8 months, September to January and April to June. Mean temperature moves 17.5 °C between the warmest and coldest month. Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: March to July and October to December.

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 814 mm a year, wettest October at 87 mm, driest July at 50 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

814 mm a year at the habitat, 600 mm of it September to January and April to June. Wettest month October at 87 mm, driest July at 50 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 562 mm to 1184 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: 9 to 42 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 9 to 42 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 5, the highest 90th-percentile month 47).

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 -3.0 °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 -3.0 °C, the absolute minimum -15.9 °C, about 25 frost nights a year (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 36.1 °C. Monthly means: coldest night -0.5 °C in January (across the envelope cells -6.0 °C to 3.2 °C), warmest day 25.2 °C in July (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: -3.0 °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: 56 to 64% 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 7 °C in Jan to 25 °C in Jul; mean night from -1 °C in Jan to 15 °C in Jul. The cold quarter, Dec to Feb, is the three months around the coldest night. 814 mm of rain a year, most in Oct. The bands show the 10th to 90th percentile across 1105 habitat cells. Over 44 years at the typical cell the absolute minimum was -15.9 °C and the 99th-percentile day 36.1 °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°frost36.1° 99th-percentile day (undated)-15.9° lowest night in 44 yrs (undated)°C · day and nightcold quarter0255075100125150mm rainDLI 9–42RH 56–64 %JanFebMarAprMayJunJulAugSepOctNovDec
day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 1105 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 °C7 / 2–108 / 3–1111 / 7–1414 / 12–1719 / 16–2222 / 20–2625 / 22–2925 / 22–2921 / 19–2416 / 14–1910 / 7–147 / 3–11
Night °C-1 / -6–3-0 / -6–32 / -2–65 / 2–89 / 6–1213 / 10–1615 / 12–1915 / 12–1912 / 9–168 / 5–124 / -0–71 / -4–4
Rain mm67 / 39–10353 / 37–9157 / 39–9272 / 47–10675 / 48–11160 / 34–9250 / 18–7854 / 20–8273 / 37–11587 / 46–13784 / 49–13482 / 48–130
DLI11 / 7–1517 / 12–2125 / 19–3033 / 28–3738 / 33–4241 / 36–4642 / 36–4737 / 31–4128 / 22–3218 / 14–2312 / 8–169 / 5–13
RH %63 / 58–6861 / 57–6559 / 56–6359 / 56–6158 / 55–6158 / 53–6156 / 51–6057 / 52–6159 / 55–6262 / 58–6563 / 59–6864 / 58–69

Each figure is the median across the 1105 grid cells holding the 1457 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 925:3715 (43.725, 5.775). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -15.9 °C, 1st-percentile night -3.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 36.1 °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 1105 distinct grid cells holding the 1457 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 925:3715 (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 43.50_5.625, lapse-corrected -38 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 279 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.
NativeCorse, France, Portugal, Sardegna, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Romania, Turkey-in-Europe, Yugoslavia, Krym, Ukraine, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Kazakhstan, Kirgizistan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, Uzbekistan, North Caucasus, Transcaucasus, Afghanistan, Cyprus, Iran, Lebanon-Syria, Palestine, Sinai, Turkey, West Himalaya· introduced: Great Britain, Czechoslovakia, Germany, Baleares, Free State, Ontario, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, Kansas, Missouri, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Utah, North Carolina, Virginia
Kew's description“biennial or perennial” · “temperate”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here
Map marker43.904, 5.906 · in the densest population, 497 records (34% of those in range)
Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1471 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 1148 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker in the same place. 197 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 14 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 1471 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Salvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclareaSalvia sclarea

Photographs: (c) bernhard_hiller, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Kudaibergen Amirekul, some rights reserved (CC BY-SA) (2); (c) Zac Peterson, some rights reserved (CC BY) (4); (c) Evgenij Samarin, 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 sclarea, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Terpenoids from Salvia sclarea
Ayhan Ulubelen, Gülaçtı Topçu, C. Eri§, Ufuk Sönmez (1994) · Phytochemistry
Essential Oils and Anxiolytic Aromatherapy
William N. Setzer (2009) · Natural Product Communications
Antifungal activity of medicinal plant extracts against phytopathogenic fungus Alternaria spp
Paola Díaz Dellavalle, Andrea Cabrera, Diego Alem, Patricia Larrañaga (2011) · Chilean journal of agricultural research
Activity of Essential Oils and Individual Components against Acetyland Butyrylcholinesterase
İlkay Erdoğan Orhan, Murat Kartal, Yüksel Kan, Bilge Şener (2008) · Zeitschrift für Naturforschung C
Antimicrobial activity and mechanisms of Salvia sclarea essential oil
Haiying Cui, Xuejing Zhang, Hui Zhou, Chengting Zhao (2015) · Botanical studies
Effects of Drought Stress on Biomass, Essential Oil Content, Nutritional Parameters, and Costs of Production in Six Lamiaceae Species
Pedro García‐Caparrós, María J. Romero, Alfonso Llanderal, Pedro Cermeño (2019) · Water
Cadmium toxicity in Salvia sclarea L.: An integrative response of element uptake, oxidative stress markers, leaf structure and photosynthesis
Anelia G. Dobrikova, Emilia Apostolova, Anetta Hańć, Ekaterina Yotsova (2021) · Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety
Effect of Aromatherapy on Symptoms of Dysmenorrhea in College Students: A Randomized Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial
Sun-Hee Han, Myung‐Haeng Hur, Jane Buckle, Jeeyae Choi (2006) · The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
Pain relief assessment by aromatic essential oil massage on outpatients with primary dysmenorrhea: A randomized, double‐blind clinical trial
Ming‐Chiu Ou, Tsung‐Fu Hsu, Andrew C. Lai, Yuting Lin (2012) · Journal of obstetrics and gynaecology research
Composition and Antifungal Activity on Soil-Borne Pathogens of the Essential Oil of Salvia sclarea from Greece
Danae Pitarokili, Maria Couladis, N. Petsikos-Panayotarou, Olga Tzakou (2002) · Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

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 112 datasets via GBIF.org; each carries its own licence.