salvia

• WordNet 3.6
  • n salvia any of various plants of the genus Salvia; a cosmopolitan herb
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• • n Salvia (Bot) A genus of plants including the sage. See Sage.
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• • n salvia A large genus of gamopetalous plants of the order Labiatæ and tribe Monardeæ. It is characterized by a two-lipped calyx cleft slightly or to the middle and not closed by hairs, and by two anthers, one erect and bearing a perfect anther-cell, the other spreading and club-shaped or bearing an empty and imperfect anther-cell. The flowers are in verticillasters of two or more, these grouped in spikes, racemes, or panicles, or rarely all axillary. There are about 450 species, widely scattered through temperate and warm regions, about 30 in the United States, chiefly southward. They are either herbs or shrubs and of great variety in habit, their leaves ranging from entire to pinnatifid, and their flowers from the spike to the panicle, from a minute to a conspicuous size, and through almost all colors except yellow. The floral leaves are generally changed into bracts, often colored like the flowers. scarlet and showy in the cultivated S. splendens and other species. The members of the subgenus Salvia, including the garden sage, are all natives of the Old World, are often shrubby, and have a sterile anther-cell on each stamen; those of the subgenus Sclarea (Tournefort, 1700), including the clary, also all of them Old World species, lack the imperfect anther-cell; the large subgenus Calosphace includes about 250 American species, some of great beauty with corollas several inches in length. A general name of the species is sage, though the ornamental species are known as salvia. See sage, chia, clary, and cuts under bilabiate, calyx, and lyrate.
  • n salvia [lowercase] Any plant of this genus: applied especially to the ornamental sorts.
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• • n Salvia sal′vi-a a large genus of gamopetalous Labiate plants, including the sage.
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