I'm not sure there are good herbarium specimens of S. pulchella, and one would have to go by the written description, which can be really tricky to visualize.

Hey voodoo,

This Salvia (sim. elegans)was definitely NOT cinnabarina - that one ran all over like mad. I don't know the ins and outs of why this particular elegans-like Salvia couldn't be named definitively. I know it has a long blooming period, unlike proper elegans, and a shorter, finer habit. I trust Don Mahoney absolutely to be on top of the nomenclature, though, so I suppose it still hasn't been identified.

Strybing had 2 pulchella forms when I was there. The regular one forms a big thicket (10' high, and wider), has medium green leaves, and I think flowers a bit more, on spikes of several whorls. The one called "Cabrillo form" (provenance = Cabrillo College) is shorter, has larger lime-ish green leaves, and the fls only appear two at a time. (I planted one at my neighbor's in Oakland, since I hadn't seen it in the Arboretum...it's blooming better as it matures, and seems to want to stay 4 feet high by 7 wide.) There was also a pulchella X karwinskii (you said you have that one?) and I think another X with involucrata.

PS: this looks like what I know as S. pulchella (Cabrillo form) (sorry if the image is huge--please right click "view image")

Are you sure that the different S. univerticillata forms from Strybing and Cabrillo are not sun vs. shade differences? I remember seeing it a long time ago (around 1986) at UC Berkeley BG in the shade, and it was large.

@ Rich: Absolutely sure the 'pulchellas' are two different plants. Whether or not they are both pulchella I guess will- or has been - debated. The "Cabrillo form" (pictured in the too large image above)seems larger of leaf; with a decidedly paler, yellower-green color; & the plant is more compact. The flower color of the "regular" pulchella is more vermillion, and the "Cabrillo" less orangy.

I'd never heard the appellation univerticillata until reading this thread...I leave it to folks more involved to straighten things out!

Robin Middleton led me to the author of the taxonomic paper that redefined the species:

Three New Species in Salvia Subgenus Calosphace (Lamiaceae) from Mesoamerica by B. B. Klitgaard

I'd gotten the plant a long time ago from Strybing or U C Berkeley BG, when it was called pulchella. It had been collected by Dennis Breedlove.

All of the herbarium sheets I saw of pulchella were sparse, with not much material on them, so I'm not surprised of the name change and suspected its identity myself for quite a while..

Well, again, the 2 both called "pulchella" look COMPLETELY different from UCB vs. Strybing. UCB's plant is what is now called univerticillata, and Strybing's looks precisely like S. grewiifolia from Robin's site. I am now collecting quite a bit of seed from the latter. My resident hummingbirds are champ pollinators. :)

Thanks, voodoo! I think that's clarified it for me!

Jon, see link below. This is what UCB sells as S. pulchella. I was at their sale today, and bought a hybrid of this; they are not sure who the other 'parent' is, but presume karwinskii or involucrata.

Here is a link that might be useful: S. univerticillata