A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2007 Need confirmation...

Hi everyone...

i need to confirm if da plant with da red flowers is Scarlet Sage.. da leaves do have a smell... but not sure if itz da smell of sage coz i lost my lone baby common sage some time ago n have forgotten what it smells like....



Thanx for your help....

To me it looks like penstemon, but it's really hard to see from the picture. It could be salvia....... Sorry, I'm no help., but you just helped me!

I think it looks like Salvia coccinea.
Do the stems feel a little bit square?

I though only stuff in the mint family had square stems...one more new fact!

Kenny, Mints and Salvia, Monarda, bunches more are all in the Lamiaceae family. Gets real confusing sometimes, huh?

Hi everyone...
thanx for your responses... zuzu's petals, when i get home i'll check to see whether da stem is squarish... what if it's not... meaning it is not Salvia then..? Then could it b s melcon6 said ...a penstemon??

..n melcon6 u've got me a bit puzzled...of course i'd b very glad if i had been of some help to u or to anyone for that matter...but what puzzles me is...what is it that i had done that has helped u...?

Thanx again everyone..n have a nice day!

As Rosie has said, there is a HUGE family of plants with square stems:
but Penstemon isn't a member of that family.

So, finding out if the stem is square or not doesn't nail down the ID absolutely,
but it can help, by eliminating certain possibilities,
a square stem would rule out Penstemon,
while a truly round stem would rule out Salvia.

Hi zuzu's petals...

i have checked n da stem is truly round.... so it's not Scarlet Sage then....!! Wonder what it is....

Well . . . . . that's interesting,
. . . and not what I expected.

I felt pretty certain that it would have the squarish stems of salvia/sage,
the foliage in the foreground really convinced me,
perhaps they are not part of the same plant?



Maybe it is a Penstemon,
though the ones I'm familiar with have lanceolate foliage.

Hi zuzu's petal....

after reading your post i made another check... da last time i didnt look very carefully, i think...i just touched da stem...feeling it n thot it was truly round... this second time i looked more closely ... u r RIGHT!!! Da stem is squarish... it was small i thot it was round!
So it is Scarlet sage after all..?

TQ soo very much for your responses... u have been a great help...!!

Have a nice day!