Keyed Out #089 — Salvia rosmarinus

Question 1

Roll a stem and it has four corners, and the leaves come off it in opposite pairs, each pair set across the pair below.

Accepted Answer

mint family

Question 2

Its {ovary} is quartered so deeply that the {style} springs from the base between the lobes, and the ripe fruit separates into four one-seeded {nutlets}.

Accepted Answer

Lamiaceae

Question 3

Only two stamens are fertile, and each carries its {connective} drawn out into a hinged arm that pivots when an insect pushes into the flower throat.

Accepted Answer

Salvia

Question 4

The {corolla} is strongly two-lipped, its upper lip arched into a narrow hood and its lower lip spread out as a broad landing shelf.

Accepted Answer

Salvia

Question 5

Its leaves are linear needles barely 0.1 inch (2 to 3 mm) across, dark green above, densely white-woolly beneath, with the margins rolled under toward that pale surface.

Accepted Answer

Salvia rosmarinus

Question 6

It is a woody shrub in leaf all year that carries its flowers in small whorls in the leaf {axils} along the shoots, never gathered into a long spike at the shoot tip.

Accepted Answer

Salvia rosmarinus