The approximately 700 species of Salvia are distributed in the temperate and tropical parts of both hemispheres. The common garden sage, S. officinalis, which is used as a spice, is the most important economic species.
Salvia divinorum Epling et Játiva-M. in Bot. Mus. Leafl., Harvard Univ. 20 (1962) 75.
Perennial herb, 3 feet in height or taller. Leaves 12-15 cm long, ovate, acuminate, basally more or less rounded, cernate-serrate with hairs in sinuses along margins, glabrate but hirtellous along lower viens; attenuated into a petiole 2-3 cm long. Flowers bluish, slightly pubescent, in full panicles on branches 30-40 cm long. Calyx tube bluish, 15 mm long with superior lip 1.5 mm long and 3 impressed veins; sigmoid corolla tube blue, 22 mm long, with superior lip 6 mm tall, inferior lip shorter and incurved; stamens inserted near mounth of tube, included; style hirtellous, with posterior branch rather long, obtuse, flat, anterior branch apparently carinate.
Known only from cultivated material in forest ravines in black soil in northeastern Oaxaca, Mexico at altitudes of about 5,500 feet. Salvia divinorum is apparently a cultigen and seems not to occur wild, perhaps indicative of a long association with man. The plant is known as Ska Pastora among the Mazatec of Oaxaca, where it is used for divinatory rites. R. G. Wasson has suggested that Salvia divinorum may represent the Aztec divinatory plant pipiltzintzintli.
