Salvia splendens (scarlet sage)

Plate 1 figs. a–h · 8 separate observations

Salvia splendens, photographed by Maria Janeiro — fig. a Maria Janeiro, CC BY 4.0 / 2022-04-29 / obs. 192071610

Salvia splendens, photographed by Rejoice Gassah — fig. b Rejoice Gassah, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 128356023

Salvia splendens, photographed by João D'Andretta — fig. d João D'Andretta, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 108094775

Salvia splendens, photographed by alessandradalia — fig. e alessandradalia, CC BY-SA 4.0 / obs. 21635730

Salvia splendens, photographed by Viral joshi — fig. f Viral joshi, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 126632603

Salvia splendens, photographed by B. Phalan — fig. g B. Phalan, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 4348335

Salvia splendens, photographed by Diogo Luiz — fig. h Diogo Luiz, CC BY 4.0 / obs. 127418053

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 1 botanical country

Native distribution of Salvia splendens, 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
Brazil Southeast	BZL	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 48 in flower of 48 examined

100%

Proportion of examined Salvia splendens in flower, by month
Month	In flower	Examined	Share	95% interval
Jan	8	8	100%	68% to 100%
Feb	1	1	too few examined
Mar	5	5	100%	57% to 100%
Apr	3	3	too few examined
May	3	3	too few examined
Jun	2	2	too few examined
Jul	2	2	too few examined
Aug	4	4	too few examined
Sep	5	5	100%	57% to 100%
Oct	3	3	too few examined
Nov	8	8	100%	68% to 100%
Dec	4	4	too few examined

Peak flowering in Jan. Each bar is the share of Salvia splendens 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. 48 of 48 examined observations were in flower, every one of them research grade. The whisker on each bar is a 95% Wilson interval. 8 months have fewer than 5 examined observations, so no proportion is drawn for them. 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 6 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.

Fenixanthes splendens (Sellow ex Nees) Raf.
Horminum splendens (Sellow ex Nees) M.Gómez
Jungia splendens (Sellow ex Nees) Soják
Salvia brasiliensis Spreng.
Salvia colorans Benth.
Salvia issanchou Anon.

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.
USDA PLANTS Database. common name, checklist symbol SASP6. public domain. 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.