Strange Salvia from involucrata

This is from a seed from Salvia involucrata 'Boutin'...which may be the same as 'Hadspen'. It appears to have hybridised...or may be just a freak!!! Flowering now, late December, under glass.

Foliage so different from involucrata...also it is winter-flowering, and a small bushy plant. Cannot imagine what it may have crossed with...as no winter-flowering species were flowering at the same time as the summer-flowering involucrata. Another Salvia collector 150 miles from here had an identical experience. Could it just be a freak? But the foliage is very strange.....

Think about this...and Happy New Year to you all!

Robin.

My S. involucrata blooms in the fall and if it was protected from frost I wouldn't be surprised if it could keep on blooming into the winter so the bloom time might not be all that strange--I've grown several individual S. involucrata plants at my old house and here and they have all been fall bloomers.

Very interesting. I am quite sure that the parent involucrata `Hadspen' or probably `Boutin' is already a hybrid. Straight involucratas and puberulas have prominent involucres. What I have been calling `Hadspen' has bracts, but what passes for an involucre is rather small and elongated. I've wondered if it might be a cross with S. elegans. The lax, even drooping branches of Hadspen are like those of elegans.

The foliage of your plant looks sessile, at least. Could they also be connate, or sheathing? The stem also looks rather large and succulent, rather than narrow or woody. The internodes are pretty congested, I think. These aspects remind me of S. clinopodioides, but that can't possibly be the other parent.

Is the cross-section of the plant stem still square and straight, with no zig-zagging or extra vascular bundles? I get some axillary growth on my plants, and the cuttings maintain this feature, usually with short internodes.

See the image of the San Rafael Peach for a twisted stem.

Attached is an image of a Salvia elegans Honey-Melon with 6-fold symmetry. This last spring, I had a lot of this going on. I usually get 3-6 cuttings from various plants like this, but this last spring, I got more like 20!

Well, Robin, since I got my 'Boutin' from you, it will be interesting to see what my seeds do.

wcgypsy.......seeds invariably come true from 'Boutin', this was a one-off.

Rich,

The leaves are definitely sessile, apart from a couple right at the bottom of the plant. Don't think they are connate or sheathing, not that I am sure what those words mean exactly. Here are some more photos of the plant...which, by the way, is only 18 inches tall.

Apologies for the poor quality, too sunny today, yet only 34 degrees.

Another photo

And another...

And another....

Finally...an older photo of the foliage.

If this is not a hybrid, is it possible that the seed may have been damaged? Just a thought.

I always have the hope that interesting variants may show up.....