Salvia leptophylla is the old name for S. reptans.. Jacquin's description (reptans) in 1798 was the original, but Epling in 1938 went with Bentham's 1833 (leptophylla) treatment because he considered that form to be more deserving as the type for taxonomic description. A change in naming convention in the 60's caused the current name to be accepted.

Most forms of this widely distributed species are low spreaders, like the east Texas form I used to have. It is found as far south as Guatemala in the mountains. The east Texas form was found at a lower elevation to the east of the west Texas form, and was more difficult to propagate, and not as hardy.

The erect habit of the west Texas form is very distinctive, and it seems to resemble S. azurea grandiflora in habit. There is a new selection called `Autumn Sapphire’ which I acquired early June in Massachusetts while on vacation.

Was the East Texas form from East Texas or was it just East of the west Texas form? Those are worlds apart. I am confused. Oh grrrrrrr. I have Salvia reptans west TX form already.

I never found out about where the east Texas form came from, but S. reptans does not occur east of the Pecos, according to the Manual of the Vascular Plants of Texas (1970), It is found in cobbly-gravelly soils in dry washes and stream beds in mountains of the Trans-Pecos (west of the Pecos River). The USDA PLANTS Profile page for this species is http://plants.usda.gov/core/profile?symbol=SALE2.  Evidently there is no collection data at the county level.

It is listed as S. leptophylla. Another revision of its name? Arrgh!

So is the current name S. reptans or S. leptophylla.

Since I haven't yet found a reference to the current change in naming, I'm staying with the name currently being used in the trade. Ditto for changing S. guaranitica to S. caerulea. I don't want to get into the weeds on these topics and make assertions I can't back up. That's easy to do and hard to get out of.

There are several causes to such situations. One is the changes in naming protocols, as adopted by the meetings of the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants (currently Melbourne Code). ICN meets currently every six years to deal with revisions, with the new code named after the city where the convention was held. Because of the need to develop efficient and accurate searchable data bases, there have been a lot of changes that to many seem like nitpicking and are difficult to work with because nature doesn't want to cooperate with a purely logical hierarchy.

Communicating individual changes to horticulturalists, especially nurserymen, is tedious work and there is often a lot of inertia to overcome because these communications are often of low priority and not easy to access. It would be nice if there was a web page to communicate these changes as approved and released.

Wikipedia article on the ICN

Melbourne Code

LOL, I guess there is no such thing as a simple answer for a simple question when botanical names are involved.