FoI
Russian Sage
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Russian Sage
ative Photo: Prashant Awale
Common name: Russian Sage • Chinese: 分药花 Fen yao hua • Ladakhi: Iskiling, s’Tarobu • Pashto: Shaushobai, Gwari drani, Gwaree Durnoo • Persian: Brazambel
Botanical name: Salvia abrotanoides    Family: Lamiaceae (Mint family)
Synonyms: Perovskia abrotanoides, Perovskia artemisioides

Russian Sage is a subshrub, wide-spreading, aromatic, up to 1 m tall. Stems are much branched from a thick woody rootstock, leafy, with very short adpressed hairs and some oil globules. Leaves are multiply cut, with linear or linear-oblong ultimate segments, abouts 4-7 x 2.5 cm, below with a dense indumentum of hairs and numerous oil globules, sometimes shairless, stalk about 1 cm. Flowers are borne in showy, large, much-branched spikes with 2-4-flowered distant clusters. Bracts and bracteoles are present. Sepal cup is tubular, violet, about 4 mm long in flower, somewhat longer and broader in fruit, with a dense indumentum of long villous eglandular hairs, and many oil globules. Flowers are violet blue, rarely white, about 1 cm long, hairy, tube slightly protruding beyond the sepals. Upper lip is apparently 4-lobed, reflexed; lower lip 1-lobed, entire. Stamens are either clearly protruding or included, filaments often mauve. Style included or clearly protruding with a broadly bilobed stigma. Nutlets are ovoid, smooth, dark brown, about 2 x 1 mm. Russian Sage is found in E. Iran, Turkmenia, Afghanistan, Soviet Central Asia, Pakistan, Kashmir and Tibet, at altitudes of 2000-3500 m. Flowering: May-August.
Medicinal uses: Russian Sage is locally used for treating headache, typhoid, atherosclerosis, toothache, cough, liver fibrosis, and gonorrhea cardiovascular diseases in Iran. It is used to control painful urination and fever in Ladakh.

Identification credit: Prashant Awale Photographed in Sasuma, Ladakh.

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