Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca, on Beeston Bump

Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca, is one of the glories of summer, flowering from June to September in open grassland on sunny banks, sand dunes and roadsides. I saw the magnificent specimen in the photograph above on Beeston Bump last June, on the same day I saw the Purple Broomrape.

In winter, Wild Clary forms a basal rosette of leaves, then elongates in late spring and produces leaves in pairs clasping the stem, topped with spikes with whorls of violet-blue, open-mouthed flowers. There are some lovely photos of the plant on the Naturespot website.

The leaves and stems are covered in glandular hairs and the plant has a slight, pleasant scent, nothing like as strong as the usual culinary Sage, Salvia officinalis.

The flowers are attractive to insects, especially bees. However, the flowers can also stay closed and set viable seed by self pollination. This is known as cleistogamy: from the Greek kleistos and gamos, meaning “closed marriage”.

Wild Clary is a native, long lived perennial. It is commonest in the south and east of England, though it does occur in Wales, Ireland and southern Scotland, where it is mostly confined to coasts. It is declining, particularly inland and in the north of its range, with most losses probably due to changes in land use.

Outside the British Isles, Wild Clary is native to northern Africa, western and southern Europe (including France, Portugal, Spain, Albania, Bulgaria, Greece, Italy, Yugoslavia and southern Ukraine) and western Asia (including Cyprus, Israel, Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and Azerbaijan). In warmer areas, such as in the Mediterranean, Wild Clary flowers much earlier than in Norfolk: mainly from January to May.

Wild Clary has been introduced to Australia, where it is described as a “significant environmental weed” in the state of Victoria. It also grows as a weed in South Australia, New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia. (The Queensland Government’s factsheet also has some good pictures of the plant, including an “infestation”.) It has also reached New Zealand and the United States (California, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey).

Wild Clary does well on the sandy soils in our part of Norwich and it makes a good addition to the wildlife garden. I have a small patch of Wild Clary on the edge of my lawn, thanks to my friend Ian who gave me a plant a couple of years ago. Emorsgate Seeds sell Wild Clary seed, if you want to give it a try. Sow the seed in spring or autumn in a pot in a cold frame or direct into a sunny spot. Once you have the plant, it should self-seed and slowly spread.

Wild Clary is edible, which could be useful to Australians and Americans and anyone who grows their own. (Personally I wouldn’t pick it in the wild in Britain because it is too rare.) According to the Plants for a Future website, the leaves can be used to make a tea and the young leaves can be eaten raw, fried or even candied. They will add flavour to salads and cooked food. In “Flora Britannica” (Sinclair – Stevenson 1996) Richard Mabey explains that the name ‘Clary’ comes from ‘clear-eye’, because the seeds were soaked in water to produce a jelly (“rather like frogspawn”) that could soothe and cleanse the eye. Analysis of the oil from Salvia verbenaca has found that it has antibacterial, antioxidant, antifungal, anti-inflammatory properties. In Sicily the plant has been used in traditional medicine to treat kidney stones.

In southern England Wild Clary is sometimes associated with churchyards, especially in Suffolk and Sussex, and this is possibly because it was sown on graves in Medieval times, in the belief that it gave immortality.

The plant grows in Earlham Cemetery in Norwich, where it is barely clinging on. There used to be several plants but they have gradually been mown out of existence. Every year the plants are cut down when they are starting to come into flower and this weakens them so that they gradually lose vigour. There is now just a single plant, which never has a chance to set seed. Friends of Earlham Cemetery and Norfolk Wildlife Trust have drawn up a Habitat Management Plan for the Cemetery, most of which is a County Wildlife Site. If the Plan is adopted and implemented correctly, the plant could recover. If not, it will disappear very soon.

Meadow Clary, Salvia pratensis, is a close relative of Wild Clary. It is much rarer and its native population in the British Isles is limited to twenty-one locations, mainly in Oxfordshire, the North and South Downs and the Chilterns. It is an offence to pick, uproot or damage it, although that didn’t stop the theft of plants from Ranscombe Farm reserve on the North Downs in 2008. Meadow Clary also likes sunny, open grassland, but prefers soils in areas of chalk or limestone. Like Wild Clary, Salvia verbenaca, it can be grown as an attractive garden plant. Its flowers are more spectacular than Wild Clary.