Anybody?

According to the link below there are between 700 to 1000 species of Salvia.

I've not seen a red flowered Salvia with leaves like shown in the photo.

https://www.revolvy.com/page/List-of-Salvia-species

Where did the friend find this plant?

I was thinking the same thing about the leaves not looking like any salvia I've ever seen. She thought 'salvia' I suppose because of the look of the flowers.

So let me rephrase the question: "Does anyone recognize this plant?"

She got it at a nursery in Seguin, TX which is a few miles east of San Antonio. Apparently it was not labeled. She just liked it.

From what I see the flowers appear to be Salvia though we don't have a sharp close up. Many times the foliage is aromatic. Perhaps she can bruise a leaf and report back.

My GUESS ( and I mean guess) would be Salvia darcyi or a hybrid of it.

Sorry, I don't recognize it.

It looks a lot like my cedar sage (salvia roemeriana), although the small new leaves on my cedar sage are more rounded than in the photo above. There are some photos from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center Image Gallery that do show the new small cedar sage leaves to be more narrow. Scroll down the page to see the photos.

I thought the shape looked like a S. romeriana too but the whole plant of this mystery one is bigger and the color of the flower is pinker. S romeriana is an intense rich red.

Possibly something has distorted leaves of a cedar sage (S. roemeriana) a bit? The smaller leaves look right. Also bloom seems correctly 3 to 5 weeks ahead of ours in north Texas.

It could quite possibly be cedar sage (S. roemeriana) grown under green house conditions with fertilizer and thus producing bigger leaves.

Will let you all know when I hear back on the leaf scent and receive close up photos of the flowers.

Oops.... missed other cedar sage posts made while I was out taking the photo. OP plant is large, but doesn't seem abnormally so once the height of the pot is eliminated. Flower color is off or could just be an artifact of the digital photo... my camera captures their intense red in shade, but shows them pinker in brighter spots. I know of at least one named cultivar, so imagine there's been some work on other hybrids/selections for color or size.

Mine grow in the wild, in native caliche soil and stay small....also unirrigated, unfertilized. They came with the hills.

The photo reminds me a little of the Texas Betony/Stachys coccinea that I've tried to grow in the past, and that's a lighter red color. But shouldn't the leaves be more scalloped? And the whole plant would stink. At least until I managed to kill it.

My Seguin friend thanks all of your for your efforts. She went back to the nursery just now, saw another one that was labeled and it is indeed Salvia roemeriana as several of you suggested. Again ... many thanks!

It was fun to see all the photos but rather sobering to remember how many times I've planted Salvia roemeriana and Salvia darcyi and failed. Glad your friend got the answer!