black sage ~ 03/03/12 ~ Jacks Peak

black sage
Salvia mellifera
Lamiaceae

Ever since my Doh! moment of finding junipers on Juniper Canyon Trail at Pinnacles, I realized I could pay better attention to the names of trails and why they might be named that. So, when I headed down Sage Trail, I kept my eye out for sages. This is a new ID for Nature ID. Black sage is found at all my favorite hiking haunts, but I have never bothered to take note of it before. Two sites that have great information about sages in CA, are Las Pilitas Nursery (I especially like the section titled "Other stinky things that are also called sages but are not.") and Wayne's Word (He starts off with a cursory review of sages around the world and ends up in CA.).

Does anyone know if black sage leaves can be used in cooking? One of my favorite sauces to make is crispy sage with browned butter. I grow garden sage in the windowsill just for this purpose.

pitcher sage ~ 06/10/11 ~ Pinnacles

pitcher sage / California pitcher plant

Lepechinia calycina
Lamiaceae

Edited 07/16/11 - I originally posted with pictures from 06/09/11, but I like these photos better. The previous day the pitcher sages were so fragrant that it stopped us in our tracks. I've seen these at Fort Ord before, but I never noticed its incredibly wonderful scent. Maybe the very warm day helped spread the smell. I wonder if the flowers and leaves can be eaten. I would definitely include this in my dream garden.

creeping sage / Sonoma sage
Salvia sonomensis
Lamiaceae

At first I thought this might be a chia (S. columbariae), but the flowers and leaves totally don't match. The leaves remind me of the garden sage (S. officinalis) I get from the farmers' market to make crispy sage in browned butter. Yum! Other than that, I can't seem to find a match for this pretty little plant. I thought this would be easy to ID. Nope. Can you ID?

ps 05/01/11 - I originally posted this as an unknown sage in a fit of fever and lack of energy. Just a few hours after posting the above on 04/27/11, I ended up in the emergency room and spent a few days in the hospital. I'm finally home and free to go to the bathroom without having to disconnect from wires and tubes and haul around an IV stand. As a parting gift, the nice doctors gave me a colorful cocktail of more pills than I've ever taken in my life. While I try to minimize mentions of my personal troubles on Nature ID, I am issuing a disclaimer: I may start posting some wonky/excessive blog entries in the next week as I stay home to recover while high on these meds. Please ignore or have a good laugh. Thanks to commenters and Brian LeNeve from the Monterey Bay Chapter of the CNPS for providing me with the name of this plant, so named for the way it spreads along the ground. As usual, I've corrected the ID's above with embedded links for anyone who would like to see and read more information.

pitcher sage / woodbalm
Lepechinia calycina
Lamiaceae

Had no idea what this was when we were hiking. Simply going through Calflora pics for the Monterey area, I came across this. Should have known it was in the mint family!