Classical name.
Mostly low-growing, aromatic annual herbs or perennial subshrubs. Leaves small, linear, entire or with a few teeth, mostly stalkless. Flowers solitary or in fewflowered, stalkless clusters in the leaf axils towards the tips of the stems. Calyx tubular, 10-13-nerved, 5-toothed, equal or not. Corolla hardly longer than the calyx, tube straight, upper lip short, notched, lower lip longer, 3-lobed with the middle lobe longest, white or mauve. Stamens in 2 pairs curved upwards, attached at the throat and the lower pair the longest.
Grown as culinary herbs in the herb garden for the aromatic leaves and beeattracting flower spikes. Micromeria is a genus sometimes included in Satureja and is closely related but with convergent stamens; it is occasionally available as M. thymifolia (Scop.) Fritsch. [Satureja thymifolia Scop.] S. thymbra L., Pink Savory, from the Aegean is occasionally offered; it can be recognised by the numerous bracteoles (about as long as the calyx) in the flower heads.
Annuals by seed, perennials by division or softwood cuttings.
Several species have been used as a condiment since classical times; they have also been used medicinally for the relief of digestive disorders and insect stings.
Flower tube straight; stamens protruding from flower mouth; anthers of stamen pairs adherent.
30 species, mostly temperate and warm-temperate northern hemisphere.
De Wolf (1954c), Epling & Jativa (1964, 1966).
Source: (2002). Salvia. In: . Horticultural Flora of South-eastern Australia. Volume 4. Flowering plants. Dicotyledons. Part 3. The identification of garden and cultivated plants. University of New South Wales Press.