Salvia hispanica (Spanish sage)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salvia hispanica, photographed by José Belem Hernández Díaz — fig. a José Belem Hernández Díaz, CC BY 4.0 / 2021-11-10 / obs. 168694734

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Daniel Cahen — fig. b Daniel Cahen, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 167899778

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Thomas Mesaglio — fig. c Thomas Mesaglio, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 148245833

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Fabien Piednoir — fig. d Fabien Piednoir, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 106300608

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Josep Gesti — fig. e Josep Gesti, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 102749490

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Luis F. Ramírez — fig. g Luis F. Ramírez, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 57016509

Salvia hispanica, photographed by Neptalí Ramírez Marcial — fig. h Neptalí Ramírez Marcial, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 107462236

Every figure is a research-grade observation under CC0, CC BY or CC BY-SA, rehosted with the photographer’s name, the licence and the observation it came from. Photographs under a NonCommercial licence are excluded from this site and are never stored, which costs us a great many pictures and is not negotiable.

Native range 7 botanical countries

Native distribution of Salvia hispanica, after Kew’s World Checklist of Vascular Plants. Introduced, extinct and doubtful records are excluded, so this is where the plant is from, not everywhere it now grows.

Region	TDWG code	Continent
Mexico Central	MXC	NORTHERN AMERICA
Mexico Gulf	MXG
Mexico Northeast	MXE
Mexico Northwest	MXN
Mexico Southeast	MXT
Mexico Southwest	MXS
Guatemala	GUA	SOUTHERN AMERICA

Region boundaries approximated from Natural Earth (public domain) and mapped to TDWG World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions (WGSRPD) level-3 botanical countries (Brummitt 2001). Indicative, not the official WGSRPD geometry.

Flowering 271 in flower of 313 examined

76%

82%

70%

88%

100%

67%

33%

83%

92%

88%

100%

Proportion of examined Salvia hispanica in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	16	21	76%	55% to 89%
Feb	9	11	82%	52% to 95%
Mar	7	10	70%	40% to 89%
Apr	14	16	88%	64% to 97%
May	7	8	88%	53% to 98%
Jun	9	9	100%	70% to 100%
Jul	6	9	67%	35% to 88%
Aug	3	9	33%	12% to 65%
Sep	20	24	83%	64% to 93%
Oct	89	97	92%	85% to 96%
Nov	56	64	88%	77% to 94%
Dec	35	35	100%	90% to 100%

Peak flowering in Jun. Each bar is the share of Salvia hispanica observations in which someone actually recorded the reproductive state and found the plant in flower, not the raw number of flowering records. That distinction matters: people observe plants far more in spring than in winter, so a bare count of flowering records partly measures when people go outside. Dividing by the number examined removes that. 271 of 313 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. This is still a global aggregate and not a forecast for your garden: the same species flowers on different dates in different hemispheres. Where a species has fewer than 30 flowering records we do not draw this chart at all. Computed from 10.15468/dl.cgje2x.

Also published as 9 synonyms

A synonym is not an error. It is a record of botanists disagreeing, in print, about where this plant belongs. Each of these was somebody’s considered answer.

Kiosmina hispanica (L.) Raf.
Salvia chia Sessé & Moc.
Salvia chia Colla
Salvia hispanica var. chionocalyx Fernald
Salvia hispanica var. intonsa Fernald
Salvia neohispanica Briq.
Salvia prysmatica Cav.
Salvia schiedeana Stapf
Salvia tetragona Moench

Sourcesevery claim on this page

World Flora Online Plant List. accepted name, authority, classification. CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-12.
iNaturalist. photographs and flowering annotations, CC0 / CC BY / CC BY-SA only. per photograph. Retrieved 2026-06-27.
Wikidata. common name (P1843), joined on the World Flora Online identifier (P7715). CC0. Retrieved 2026-07-13.
Kew, World Checklist of Vascular Plants (WCVP v16). native distribution by TDWG level-3 botanical country, and life form. CC BY 3.0. Retrieved 2026-06-04.

We publish what we can source and we say so when we cannot. This page has no care advice and no toxicity claim, because we do not yet have those from a source we can cite.