Baby sage

Salvia microphylla, commonly known as baby sage, blackcurrant sage, or mirto de montes, is a small evergreen aromatic shrub of the Lamiaceae family, native to the mountains of eastern Mexico and the southwestern United States. Plants grow 60 to 120 centimetres tall and equally wide, with woody bases and softly hairy young stems that are square in cross-section. Leaves are opposite, simple, ovate to elliptic, 1.5 to 3 centimetres long, finely toothed, with a textured upper surface and a strong sweet fragrance that is often likened to blackcurrant when crushed. Flowers are produced over a long season in loose terminal racemes; each tubular two-lipped corolla is 18 to 28 millimetres long, with a hooded upper lip and a broader notched lower lip, in a range of pinks, reds, magentas, and rarely white, with two fertile stamens characteristic of the genus. Calyces are bell-shaped and often flushed reddish-purple. Fruits are small dry nutlets.