Pineapple Sage
Growth habit
Herbaceous
Perennation
Cultivated as annual
Native distribution
Mexico, Guatemala
Biocultural value
Sweet, bright red flowers make an attractive and flavorful garnish. Leaves add a mild pineapple flavor to herbal teas.
Location
Source of plant
Unknown
Description
Perennial herb or subshrub to 2m. Stems branched, glandular-pubescent. Leaves to 10cm, petiolate, simple, ovate to deltoid, apex narrowly acute to attenuate, base usually truncate or cordate, margin notched, glabrous to pubescent; petioles to 3cm, pubescent. Verticillasters 2-6-flowered, to 2cm distant, in loose, interrupted, branched, paniculate racemes to 15cm; bracts deciduous, ovate, apex caudate; calyx to 7mm, bell-shaped, dilated in fruit, glandular-pubescent, lips subequal, upper lip truncate or obsoletely and mucronately toothed; corolla scarlet, tube to 27mm, interior pubescent, upper lip to 11mm.
USDA Hardiness Zone
8
Special characteristics
tender perennial, food