SAGE
Sage (Salvia officinalis) is the common sage. Sage, sauge, swage, natural order Laminaceoe.
French, Sauge; Portuguese, Salva; Italian and Latin, Salvia, Salvas (Culpepper). It is governed by Mars. Salvia, from salvo, to save or heal. The most extensively used of the herbs is the sage. Its high reputation as a medicine lasted for years. The Arabians valued it, and the medical school of Salerno summed up its surpassing merits in the line, “Cur morietor homo cui salvia cresit in horto?” (How can a man die who grows sage in his garden?) Perhaps this originated the English saying, “Who eats sage in May shall live for aye.” Parkinson says: “It maketh the hayre blacke, it is good for woundis. For lethargy and forgetfulness bathe the back of the head with a decoction of sage and smallage.” Pepys notes that in churchyards between Gasport and Southampton, England, the custom prevailed of sowing the graves with sage. Evelyn sums up its noble properties by its assiduous use as making man immortal. “We cannot, therefore, but allow the tender summities of the young leaves but principally the flowers in our sallet.”
Salvia officinalis and S. grandiflora. The first is the common garden sage, a native of southern Europe, and has been naturalized for many years in this country as a garden plant. It is a perennial shrub, seldom more than two feet high and sometimes treated as an annual. The plant has a pubescent four-sided stem with erect branches, hoary with down, and leafy at the base, those bearing flowers being about a foot or a foot and a half long. The flowers are in racemes of blue variegated with purple (rarely red), arranged in spiked whorls. The flowers have but two perfect stamens, the filaments of which bear at their summit a cross thread. A much-elongated connective is fastened by a point and has one cell of the anther at the upper end and the other, but imperfect, cell at the other end. The seeds of many species, when steeped in water, become covered with a mucilaginous slime, like that of quince seeds. The leaves are ovate, oblong, lanceolate, finely notched, are curiously wrinkled or rough, hairy or tomentose, and of a whitish-green color. The leaves and tops are gathered and dried during the flowering seasons, which is in June and July. Sage is slightly tonic with a peculiar, strong, astringent, aromatic, camphorous odor, and a sharp, warm, slightly bitter taste. These properties are owing to its volatile oil (sage oil), which may be obtained by distilling the plant with water infusion, but more especially in alcohol. Formerly it had a high reputation as a sudorific and as an antiseptic, and was so esteemed by the ancients, especially by the Chinese, but at present, though officinal, it is little used as a remedy except in domestic practice, and it has no place in the pharmacopœia. But the infusion is much valued in cases of gastric debility as a gargle, checking flatulency with speed and certainty. It is a good astringent and nerve tonic as well as a good remedy for use in cases of rheumatism. But its great use is as a condiment in flavoring dress, sausage, cheese, etc. Sage grows best in dry soil and is found growing on sunny mountain slopes and rocks. It has long been in general cultivation in gardens, and it is easily raised from the seed or from cuttings or divisions of the root. Roots should be planted about six inches apart. Sage brush (Carteunissia hidenlata) is found on Western table lands. The apple-bearing sage (S. pomifera) is a native of Southern Europe and is remarkable for its reddish or purple bracts and large gall nuts growing on the branches as on the leaves of the oak. These are known as sage apples. They have an agreeable aromatic taste and are edible. Both these species are used to adulterate.
MARJORAM
1 Leaf and flower stem
2 Bract of flower
3, 4 Different views of flower
5 Stamens
6 Seed
The Salvia longiflora of Peru sometimes attains the height of twenty feet, with flowers six to eight inches long. Several kinds are found fifteen feet in height. There are said to be nearly 300 varieties of sage, among which are the following: S. splenden, with large spiked, scarlet flowers, from Mexico, which is esteemed by florists; S. coccinea, with smaller, but handsome flowers; the open-corolled S. patens, with tall, open spikes, with large blue flowers; the bracteated S. involucrata, with thick obtuse spikes of reddish-purple flowers; the Clory S. sclarea, with large, beautiful, purplish-green deciduous bracts.