Greek Sage

Salvia fruticosa, or Greek sage, is a perennial herb or sub-shrub native to the eastern Mediterranean, including southern Italy, the Canary Islands and North Africa. It is especially abundant in Palestine, Israel and Lebanon. The whole plant is covered with hairs and has leaves of many sizes in clusters, which gives it a silvery, bushy look. The flowers are pinkish-lavender, held in a small oxblood-red calyx. Its leaf shape varies so much that several variants were once named as separate species, among them Salvia libanotica and Salvia triloba. It grows in maquis shrubland, and often bears woolly galls called apples, which are peeled and eaten when soft. The page says it has a long tradition of use in Greece, was depicted in a Minoan fresco at Knossos about 1400 BCE, and has leaves with a high oil content. Greek sage accounts for 50 to 95 per cent of the dried sage sold in North America and is grown for its essential oil. It also has a long tradition in Muslim rituals, for newborn children, at weddings, in funerals, and burnt as incense.