Salvia 'Anthony Parker' is a big, late-blooming hybrid sage with a charming South Carolina origin. The plant arose as a chance seedling in the Beaufort garden of the plantswoman Frances Parker, a cross between Salvia leucantha 'Midnight' and the pineapple sage Salvia elegans, and Frances rescued the young seedling from the path of the mower and named it for her grandson Anthony, then a year old, in 1994. From that lucky reprieve came one of the best late-season salvias for the South.
Salvia littae, Litta's purple sage, is a bold, late-flowering Mexican salvia from the cool cloud forests of Oaxaca, grown for thick, plush spikes of fuzzy, purplish-pink to magenta flowers that open when the gardening year is nearly done. On stout spikes a foot or more long, the densely felted blooms have a rich, tactile quality unusual even among salvias, and the color glows in the low light of late autumn.
Salvia madrensis, the forsythia sage, is a big, robust perennial from the mountains of Mexico, grown for a late-season show of soft yellow. Broad, quilted, triangular leaves clothe stout, square, mint-family stems, and in fall the plant lifts terminal clusters of clear yellow flowers that recall a forsythia in bloom and give the sage its common name, an unusual color and a welcome one so late in the year.
Salvia melissodora, the grape-scented sage, is a woody Mexican shrub grown for a scent as much as a flower, since the small lavender-blue blooms carry an unmistakable perfume of grape soda that drifts on warm air. Native to the Sierra Madre from Chihuahua south to Oaxaca, at four to eight thousand feet, the plant flowers in long spikes from late spring right through to frost, an exceptionally long and fragrant season.
Salvia mexicana, the big blue Mexican sage, is a tall, dramatic perennial grown for deep, saturated blue-violet flowers that arrive when the gardening year is winding down. The tubular blooms, set in contrasting calyces, are carried in long spikes above bold, heart-shaped leaves, and few plants bring so pure and deep a blue to the autumn garden.
Salvia microphylla 'Lutea' is an uncommon yellow-flowered form of the littleleaf or baby sage, a small woody shrub of the mountains of Mexico and the borderlands. Where the species carries the usual salvia scarlet or orange-red, 'Lutea' opens soft, pale yellow flowers instead, a quiet and unusual color on a plant otherwise known for hot tones, and blooms over a long season from late spring into fall.
Salvia microphylla 'Deltoid' is a shrubby form of the littleleaf or baby sage grown for warm salmon-coral flowers and neat, triangular, deltoid leaves. The small tubular blooms open over a long season and read as a soft coral against the fine, glossy foliage, a gentler tone than the hot scarlet of many littleleaf sages.
Salvia microphylla 'Hot Lips' is the famous temperature-shifting bicolor of the littleleaf sages, and the trick is worth the fame. In the cool of spring the flowers may open pure white or pure red, but as summer heat builds they turn strikingly two-tone, white below with a bold red lip, so that a single plant can carry white, red, and red-and-white flowers all at once. The show runs from late spring until frost.
Salvia puberula, the downy sage, is a big, late-flowering Mexican sage grown for tall spikes of deep magenta-pink flowers that open when the year is nearly done. The blooms are large, nearly four inches long, gathered in showy clusters atop the spikes, and the color is rich and saturated, glowing at a season when little else is in flower. The spikes cut well for the vase.
Salvia uliginosa, the bog sage, is an airy, sky-blue perennial grown for clouds of clear, cool blue flowers held on tall, slender, branching stems from midsummer into fall. The species name uliginosa means of marshes, and the plant lives up to it, thriving in the moist ground most sages refuse, so the bog sage fills a niche few others in the genus can.
Salvia urticifolia, the nettleleaf sage, is an uncommon herbaceous perennial native to the Appalachians and the wider Southeast, grown for cool blue-to-violet flowers set off by a pair of white marks in the throat. The bloom comes in the freshness of mid to late spring, the flowers hovering above serrated, nettle-like leaves, and in a generous year a lighter second flush may follow in late summer.
Salvia 'Phyllis Fancy' is a vigorous, large hybrid sage with a good pedigree, found as a chance seedling at the University of California, Santa Cruz Arboretum and named for a longtime volunteer there. The parentage is thought to involve Salvia leucantha, the Mexican bush sage, and possibly Salvia chiapensis, though the cross has never been confirmed.
Sarcococca confusa, sweet box, is one of the great winter-fragrance shrubs, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown for a perfume out of all proportion to the flowers that carry it. In the depths of winter the small, tassel-like, creamy white flowers open along the stems, tucked among the leaves and easy to miss by eye, but their sweet, honeyed scent carries yards on a mild day and stops passersby in their tracks.
Sarcococca orientalis is a fragrant, uncommon sweet box from China, a compact evergreen of the boxwood family grown, like its kin, for a winter perfume far larger than the flowers that carry it. In late winter small white flowers open along the stems, modest to the eye but richly and sweetly scented, filling a still, mild day with fragrance and giving the shade garden a lift when little else stirs.
Sarcococca ruscifolia, the fragrant sweet box, is an evergreen shrub of the boxwood family, native to China and East Asia, grown for a winter perfume that belies the tiny flowers that carry it. In late winter and early spring the small, creamy white flowers open along the glossy stems, easy to overlook by eye but powerfully sweet on the air, and unlike the black-fruited sweet boxes, this species follows the flowers with glowing red berries.
Few native trees announce themselves as cheerfully as Sassafras albidum, whose leaves come in three shapes on the same branch: an unlobed oval, a two-lobed mitten, and a three-lobed silhouette like a splayed hand. A member of the laurel family, Lauraceae, and kin to bay, cinnamon, and spicebush, sassafras carries aromatic oils in every part, so that a snapped twig or crushed leaf releases a warm, root-beer sweetness. The common name traces back through Spanish to the colonial Southeast, where the tree was among the first American plants shipped to Europe as a marketable medicine.
×Schimlinia floribunda is one of the rarest woody plants a gardener can grow: a deliberate intergeneric hybrid between two members of the tea family, Theaceae, uniting the fabled Franklinia alatamaha with the Asian evergreen Schima argentea. The cross marries the ornamental drama and hardiness of Franklinia with the vigor, adaptability, and evergreen constitution of Schima, and the result carries large, camellia-like white flowers, glossy foliage, and an upright, well-furnished frame. The hybrid formula name honors both parents at once, Schima and Franklinia folded into a single word.
Showy skullcap earns the flattering half of the common name honestly: of the eastern woodland skullcaps, Scutellaria serrata carries some of the largest and most richly colored flowers. The genus name comes from the Latin scutella, a little dish or tray, for the small pouch on the upper side of the seed capsule that gives every skullcap its family resemblance. A member of the mint family, Lamiaceae, showy skullcap keeps the square stems and paired leaves of that clan, here with bright green, boldly toothed foliage often edged in wine-red.
Saw palmetto is the signature palm of the Deep South, a low, fan-leaved evergreen that carpets the pine flatwoods, scrub, and coastal dunes from the Carolinas through Florida and along the Gulf. The genus honors the American botanist Sereno Watson, and the species name repens, creeping, describes the sprawling habit, while the common name comes from the fierce saw-toothed edges that arm each leaf stalk. Serenoa repens is the only species in the genus, and among the most abundant plants in Florida.
