friday blooms–banned in several states, sorta
Salvia divinorum flowering
Today’s flower photos are of the first blooms of the season on Salvia divinorum, a plant that seemed like an appropriate choice to highlight for the 75th anniversary of Repeal Day, the end of Prohibition in the United States.
This is a plant with a couple of bad reputation points against it.
Robin Middleton, one of Britain’s big gurus on the genus Salvia, gave up on the plant: “Native to a remote part of Mexico, this is one of the most difficult salvias to get into flower…I have discarded this salvia, as mine never flowered.”
And Betsy Clebsch, one of the Bay Area’s high priestesses of the genus and author of The New Book of Salvias: Salvias for Every Garden, writes: “On several occasions I have grown the plant in a greenhouse but have never succeeded in getting my plants to flower.”
My plants are new to the garden so my experience with the plant is pretty limited. But it appears that given the right conditions, even in the hands of a non-expert like me, that first rap of never flowering appears to be undeserved.
The second rap against this salvia comes from the fact that its traditional medicinal uses and role in shamanistic divination don’t square with some notions of of what people should be doing with the plants in the natural world. Several states have recent laws on the books against processing the plant or packaging it for human consumption. Fortunately there seem to be exemptions for people using it for ornamental, horticultural purposes. Several countries, including Australia, Denmak and Italy exert some sort of control over the plant. (Better consult your lawyer or Wikipedia before planting it and giving it away to all your friends…)
What are its effects, and what’s all the fuss? you might ask. But I’m the wrong person to ask since my drugs of choice tend towards caffeine, chocolate and occasional hits of refined sugar. (Sam’s coffee cart at work offers a mocha-chip scone that hits all three addiction points!) And for altered states of consciousness I prefer to look at art, listen to music or read a book. But by general accounts this plant has no record of addiction and is probably less dangerous than alcohol and tobacco.
Closeup of Salvia divinorum flowers
Why grow it? It looks cool! (Check out the white fuzz on the individual flowers!) It has a fascinating ethnobotanical background. And the fact that some people want to ban it is alone a good reason as far as I’m concerned. Plants are interesting all on their own, but when a plant represents a microcosm of issues circulating through culture it gets to be really fascinating. (Vocabularly word of the day: synecdoche.)
Developing flowers stem on Salvia divinorum
The image to the right shows a new bloom spike with the developing violet calyxes.
If they come after this plant, what’s next? All those lovely opium poppies in your gardens?
What opium poppies? They’re just “Oriental poppies,” you might say. But they’re no less opium poppies than what’s grown in the Afghan highlands as part of the drug trade. What do you think the “somniferum” in their scientific name (Papaver somniferum) alludes to? Next time you buy a plant from somewhere you’re technically contributing to trafficking in a Schedule II controlled substance. (Check out Michael Pollan’s 1997 Harper’s Magazine article, “Opium made easy.”)
And then there are all those highly poisonous plants like foxglove, or species that could easily be modified for bioterrorism uses like castor bean. Can people be trusted to have those plants in their gardens?
It’s a slippery slope. A slippery slope, I tell you. In the meantime proudly grow your poppies and foxgloves and salvias. Keep your gardens free!
Let me go back to the cultivation question that I started with. Betsy Clebsch in the 2003 edition of her book reported that, “I have found it impossible to find anything written about it in gardening or horticultural magazines or books; my information comes from botanical and ethnobatanical descriptions and from conversations with those who have grown the plant.” The web now has a certain amount of information on how to grow the plant, and below are my notes.
What I’m doing: One of the two husky rooted cuttings from two-inch pots went into a gallon container with cheap potting soil into a shady, humid and unheated greenhouse and was kept constantly moist. The other went into the ground (sandy soil without many amendments) in a shady spot in a raised bed next to the garden pond and was watered whenever I remembered to do it.
The potted greenhouse plant grew fairly upright, but has that pale, gaunt look of some people who live in dark apartments. The plant in the ground hasn’t grown as tall, but looks more robust, putting out more in the way of basal growths. The flowering plant shown here is the one from the greenhouse, but the one outdoors is putting out a bloom stalk and seems to be a couple weeks behind the first one in blooming. The plants are different cultigens, so the difference in their behavior probably has something to do with that. But both seem to respond to bright but minimal direct sunlight and average-moist conditions at the roots.
Happy growing!
December 05 2008 04:59 pm | Categories: gardening • plant profiles | Tags: controlled substances • drugs • ethnobotany • opium poppies • Salvia divinorum
Stuart on 05 Dec 2008 at 5:47 pm #
That is such a cool salvia. I can see why you appreciate it as I too find the white fuzz a very appealing aspect. I wonder if it can be grown here in SouthWest OZ.
lostlandscape on 05 Dec 2008 at 6:12 pm #
Hi Stuart,
Thanks for stopping by.
I would guess that you would be able to deal with the cultural requirements fairly well–I believe your climate is fairly similar to mine. Just add some supplemental water.
However I understand that Australia has one of the more restrictive policies against the plant, being the first the enact legislation against it in 2002. Whether you could get a plant into the country to enjoy its fuzzy flowers would be the question. Woe.
Anna/Flowergardengirl on 05 Dec 2008 at 9:19 pm #
This is a great article as I don’t think I’ve read anything about this salvia either. I do think it’s beautiful. I wonder if it is legal in NC? How appropriate you would post it on the 75th anniversary of prohibition. It the time we could stop hiding our stills in the woods.
lostlandscape on 06 Dec 2008 at 8:41 am #
It probably is legit there tho everything seems to be a moving target. It’d probably look loverly planted around your still!
Greg on 06 Dec 2008 at 1:39 pm #
What a beautiful plant, just like the foxglove and the castor bean vine…that fuzz is a great enticement…and the purple just pushes me the rest of the way over. Sounds like it’d be a challenge hereabouts, though!