Salvia polystachia, Reserva de la Biósfera Mariposa Monarca, Ocampo, Mich., MX

Salvia polystachia Cav.

Lamiaceae

Climate known 73 photographs Temperate garden plant

Every figure on this page is derived from public data by a stated rule and says its source; nothing here is written by a person or a model, except the Wikipedia passage, which is quoted and marked as such. How it is made.

Summary

Salvia polystachia, also spelt Salvia polystachya, is a herbaceous perennial native to central Mexico and south through Central America into Panama, typically growing at elevations from 5,000 to 10,000 feet in mild climates where there is some summer rain. It is one of the species used as chia and it is rarely seen in horticulture.

Text from Wikipedia, “Salvia polystachia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written. Kept separate from everything derived here.

About the genus · Salvia

Salvia is the largest genus of plants in the sage family Lamiaceae, with just under 1,000 species of shrubs, herbaceous perennials, and annuals. Within the Lamiaceae, Salvia is part of the tribe Mentheae within the subfamily Nepetoideae. One of several genera commonly referred to as sage, it includes two widely used herbs, Salvia officinalis and Salvia rosmarinus.

Text from Wikipedia, “Salvia”, CC BY-SA 4.0, quoted as written.

Family

Lamiaceae

Described by

Cav.

Native to

Mexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf +9

Wild records

1636 in range· 878 open

At a glance

Warmest month

25°C

Apr, mean day; nights 11 °C (CHELSA)

Rain

1094mm/yr

7 wet months · peak Aug 220 mm (CHELSA)

Light

31–45DLI

mol/m²/day, winter to summer, open sky (CHELSA shortwave)

In short condensed by rule from the cultivation cards · not written by a person

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Salvia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern). Habitat rain 1094 mm a year, wettest August at 220 mm, driest December at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere). Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 45 mol/m²/day. Cold floor 3.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

Each sentence is one card's own one-line form, written by the same rule as the card (Its year, Rain, Light, Temperature); the note cannot say what a card does not. Months are given for the northern hemisphere (set your site in Settings to change this), and the habitat's own alongside. The cards · the figures.

Also known as Salvia brevicalyx Benth.; Salvia caesia Humb. & Bonpl.; Salvia caesia Willd.; Salvia cataria Briq.; Salvia compacta var. irazuensis Kuntze and 22 more.

Cultivation

Grouped as a temperate garden plant by the genus Salvia, which is reliably one kind of plant (archetype table). The table holds no figure for this group, which spans too much for one minimum; the cold floor is the habitat's alone, and no prose comes from the table.

Its year Rain rule: a summer growing season, June to September in the northern hemisphere (June to September at the habitat, northern).

This species’ habitat figures, and what two fixed rules read from them.

The rain rule reads a summer growing season: 70% of the year's rain (839 mm of 1094 mm) falls in June to September, warmer than the year (wet-season mean 17.5 °C against a yearly mean of 16.3 °C). Months are the habitat's, northern hemisphere; shifted six months for a southern-hemisphere collection: December to March.

Read from the median year of CHELSA monthly rainfall and mean temperature across the envelope cells: the rain rule takes the smallest set of months carrying 70% of the rain and calls it winter when its mean is more than half a degree below the year's, summer when more than that above, and neither in between; the temperature rule, used only under 120 mm, names the cooler six months when they are at least a degree cooler than the other six. Months are shifted for the other hemisphere only where the temperature curve gives a season to reverse. A reading of the curves, not an observation of the plant.

Rain Habitat rain 1094 mm a year, wettest August at 220 mm, driest December at 9 mm (habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

1094 mm a year at the habitat, 839 mm of it June to September. Wettest month August at 220 mm, driest December at 9 mm. Across the envelope cells the year's total runs 642 mm to 2175 mm (10th to 90th percentile of each cell's own year) (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; habitat calendar, northern hemisphere).

CHELSA monthly precipitation, median year across the envelope cells. The rain that falls where the species is recorded; nothing about how the plant takes water.

Light Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 45 mol/m²/day.

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Open sky over the habitat: 31 to 45 mol/m²/day across the year (daily light integral, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA; the lowest 10th-percentile month across the cells is 26, the highest 90th-percentile month 48).

CHELSA shortwave radiation at each envelope cell, a daily-mean flux taken to a daily total and converted at 2.07 mol of PAR per MJ. The sky over the habitat, measured; what reaches a plant under a rock, a shrub or a shade cloth is not.

Warmth and air Cold floor 3.0 °C (1st-percentile habitat night, NASA POWER).

This species’ habitat figures, with their source.

Temperature

Coldest: the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell is 3.0 °C, the absolute minimum -1.1 °C, 12 frost nights in 44 years (NASA POWER daily minima). Warmest: the 99th-percentile day is 34.2 °C. Monthly means: coldest night 7.0 °C in January (across the envelope cells 3.6 °C to 13.7 °C), warmest day 24.8 °C in April (median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). Cold floor: 3.0 °C, which is the 1st-percentile night over 44 years at the typical cell (NASA POWER).

NASA POWER daily minima and maxima 1981–2024 at the typical cell, lapse-corrected to its elevation; CHELSA monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA. The cold floor is the figure named in its sentence. Not a measured survival limit for any plant in a pot.

Humidity

Relative humidity at the habitat: 50 to 67% across the year (monthly means, median year across the envelope cells, CHELSA). A figure about the air, saying nothing about how the plant takes water.

CHELSA relative humidity, median year across the envelope cells.

The figures the cards read from are in Climate below, and where they came from in Natural habitat.

Climate across the habitat

day night rain 10th–90th percentile across 815 habitat cells cold quarter: the three months around the coldest night extremes over 44 years at the typical cell, marked at the edge: undated DLI, mol/m²/dayRH %each on its own scale

Figures by month

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
Day °C	20 / 17–25	21 / 18–26	23 / 20–28	25 / 22–30	25 / 21–29	23 / 19–27	21 / 19–26	22 / 19–26	21 / 18–25	21 / 18–25	21 / 17–25	20 / 17–25
Night °C	7 / 4–14	8 / 4–14	9 / 6–15	11 / 8–16	12 / 9–18	13 / 10–18	12 / 9–17	13 / 9–18	12 / 9–17	11 / 8–17	9 / 6–15	8 / 4–14
Rain mm	17 / 8–57	14 / 9–45	13 / 6–43	29 / 9–73	70 / 35–201	197 / 107–367	219 / 114–356	220 / 109–364	203 / 107–407	84 / 47–229	19 / 11–82	9 / 5–59
DLI	33 / 28–35	38 / 33–39	44 / 38–45	45 / 39–48	43 / 36–46	37 / 31–41	37 / 32–41	36 / 32–40	32 / 29–35	33 / 28–35	32 / 27–34	31 / 26–33
RH %	54 / 49–64	52 / 48–62	50 / 45–61	50 / 44–62	55 / 49–66	63 / 58–70	65 / 60–70	65 / 60–70	67 / 61–72	63 / 58–70	58 / 53–68	55 / 51–66

Each figure is the median across the 815 grid cells holding the 1615 in-range records, with the 10th–90th percentile span across those cells after the slash where it differs. Extremes and elevation were read at the typical cell 1403:1583 (19.825, -100.825). Over 44 years there: absolute minimum -1.1 °C, 1st-percentile night 3.0 °C, 99th-percentile day 34.2 °C. Normals: CHELSA V2.1 1981–2010 climatology, 0.05° cells (each the mean of ~36 1 km pixels). Envelope: median and 10th–90th percentile of each month across the 815 distinct grid cells holding the 1615 in-range records; extremes and elevation at the typical cell 1403:1583 (its coldest month's mean night nearest the median across cells); its position is the cell centre. Extremes: NASA POWER (MERRA-2) daily 1981–2024, cell 20.00_-100.625, lapse-corrected -218 m at 6.5 °C/km. Elevation: ETOPO 2022, 1960 m (cell mean).

Natural habitat

Native range as published by WCVP; the marker is where the records are densest and decides nothing: the climate was read across every in-range record's cell, not at the marker.

Openly licensed records inside the range, framed on where they fall.

NativeMexico Central, Mexico Northeast, Mexico Gulf, Mexico Northwest, Mexico Southwest, Mexico Southeast, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama

Kew's description“perennial or subshrub” · “subtropical”· quoted from WCVP, RBG Kew (CC BY 4.0); not derived here

Map marker19.275, -99.142 · in the densest population, 904 records (55% of those in range)

Evidence usedThe map marker and the climate envelope rest on all 1636 georeferenced records inside the native range; the map shows only the 878 openly licensed ones, which alone would put the marker 19 km away. 10 records outside the range (gardens, roadsides, misidentifications) ignored. 21 in-range records are placed to worse than 10 km and stay on the map but off the climate.

The map markerthe map marker: the openly licensed record nearest the middle of the densest 1° population of the 1636 in-range records; it decides nothing.

Photographs

Photographs: (c) Andrea Villarreal Rodríguez, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Trevor Van Loon, some rights reserved (CC BY) (5); (c) Luc Wyn, some rights reserved (CC BY); (c) Dayan Romero, some rights reserved (CC BY).

Photographs: iNaturalist did not answer when this page was built; what is shown came from the sources that did.

Papers naming this species

Works whose title or abstract names Salvia polystachia, most cited first, from OpenAlex (CC0). A mention, not a cultivation source: nothing on this page is drawn from them.

Chemical Composition of the Essential Oils of Salvia polystachia and Salvia microphylla (Lamiaceae) Growing in Costa Rica

Carlos Chaverri, José F. Cicció (2025) · Journal of the Mexican Chemical Society

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