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Salvia merjamie
Rift Valley sage is a short-lived perennial salvia from East African highlands and southwest Arabia, grown for its pale flowers and minty scent. Give it well-drained soil and sun to part shade, and expect it to live only about three years in cultivation.
Salvia merjamie (Rift Valley sage) is a herbaceous perennial plant that is native to the east African highlands from Ethiopia to Tanzania, and also across the Red Sea in Yemen. It grows between 6,000 and 13,000 feet elevation in grasslands, forest edges, rocky outcrops, basalt slopes, and fallow fields. The specific epithet merjamie is derived from meryamiye, the Arabian common name for the plant, which is shared with other local Salvia species such as Salvia lanigera. The Maasai common name for S. merjamie is Naingungundeu, meaning that the plant smells of rats, though the variety that is common in horticulture is named 'Mint Sauce' and is described as having a strong minty aroma. S. merjamie shares a similar distribution with Salvia nilotica, though they are not known to hybridize.
Salvia merjamie prefers a half to a full day of sun, well draining soil, and regular moderate watering. It is hardy down to −4 °C (25 °F) for short periods, and is typically short-lived, flowering and producing seed for about three years in cultivation. The bloom period is short, approximately three weeks, with bees and hummingbirds typically drawn to the flowers. The variety commonly sold in horticulture is named 'Mint Sauce', which was first collected near the top of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania and is described as having a strong minty aroma.
Egyptian Sage · Mediterranean sage · White sage · Brown Sage · Santa Rosa Island sage · Buchanan's Sage · Guatemalan Leaf Sage · Candelabra Sage · Cayman sage · Fragrant sage · Blood sage · Chia
Text excerpted from the Wikipedia article Salvia merjamie by its contributors, under CC BY-SA 4.0; the excerpts and the care summary drawn from them are shared under the same licence.
The care summary was written by AI (Claude, Anthropic) from the sources on this page, with general growing knowledge where they are silent. Check before relying on it.
Life form, climate and native range: World Checklist of Vascular Plants, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (CC BY 3.0), reformatted; see Plants of the World Online.
