Clary Sage
salvia sclarea

Moon
Protection
Visionary

HABITAT
Middle Europe.

Common Clary,
like the Garden Sage, is not a native
of Great Britain, having first been introduced
into English cultivation in the year 1562.
It is a native of Syria, Italy,
southern France and Switzerland
but will thrive here upon almost any soil
that is not too wet, though it will rot frequently
upon moist ground in the winter.

Gerard, in 1597,
describes and figures several varieties of Clary,
under the names of Horminum and Gallitricum.
He describes it as growing 'in divers barren
places almost in every country, especially
in the fields of Holborne neare unto Grayes Inne
. . . and at the end of Chelsea.'

It must have become acclimatized very quickly
if it was found 'in divers barren places' before
the close of the sixteenth century,
less than forty years after its
introduction into the country.

Salmon, in 1710, in The English Herbal,
gives a number of varieties of the Garden Clary,
which he calls Horminum Hortense,
in distinction to Horminum Sylvestre,
Wild Clary, subdividing it into the
Common Clary (H. commune),
the True Garden Clary of Dioscorides
(H. sativum verum Dioscorides),
the Yellow Clary (Calus Jovis),
and the Small or German Clary
(H. humile Germanicum or
Gallitricum alterum Gerardi).

It is interesting to note that this last variety,
being termed Gerardi, indicates that Gerard
classified this species when it was first
brought over from the Continent,
evidently taking great pains to trace its history, giving in his
Herball its Greek name and its various Latin ones.

Clary was known in ancient times
is shown by the second variety,
the True Garden Clary being termed Dioscoridis.

DESCRIPTION
Common Garden Clary is a biennial plant,
its square, brownish stems growing
2 to 3 feet high, hairy and with few branches.
leaves are arranged in pairs, almost stalkless,
and are almost as large as the hand,
oblong and heart-shaped, wrinkled,
irregularly toothed at the margins and
covered with velvety hairs.
flowers are in a long, loose, terminal spike,
on which they are set in whorls.
lipped corollas, similar to the Garden Sage,
but smaller, are of a pale blue or white.
flowers are interspersed with large coloured,
membraneous bracts, longer than the spiny calyx.
Both corollas and bracts are generally
variegated with pale purple and yellowish-white.
seeds are blackish brown,
'contained in long toothed husks,'
as an old writer describes the calyx.
whole plant possesses a very strong,
aromatic scent, somewhat resembling that
of Tolu, while the taste is aromatic,
warm and slightly bitter.

HISTORY
According to Ettmueller,
this herb was first brought into use
by the wine merchants of Germany,
who employed it as an adulterant,
infusing it with Elder flowers, and then adding the liquid
to the Rhenish wine, which converted it into a Muscatel.
It is still called in Germany,
Muskateller Salbei (Muscatel Sage).

Waller (1822)
states it was employed in this country
as a substitute for Hops, for sophisticating beer,
communicating considerable bitterness and
intoxicating property, which produced an
effect of insane exhilaration of spirits,
succeeded by severe headache.

Lobel says:
'Some brewers of Ale and Beere doe put
it into their drinke to make it more heady,
fit to please drunkards, who thereby,
according to their several dispositions,
become either dead drunke,
or foolish drunke, or madde drunke.'
In some parts of the country, a wine
has been made from the herb in flower,
boiled with sugar, which has a
flavour not unlike Frontiniac.
Though employed in ancient times and
in the Middle Ages for its curative properties,
it seems to have fallen into
disuse as a medicinal plant,
though revived to a certain extent towards
the end of the nineteenth century.

The English name Clary originates
in the Latin specific name sclarea,
a word derived from clarus (clear).
This name Clary was gradually modified into
'Clear Eye,' one of the popular names and
generally explained from the fact that the seeds
have been employed for clearing the sight,
being so mucilaginous that a decoction
from them placed in the eye would
'clear' it from any small foreign body,
presence might have caused irritation.

Garden Clary has fallen into disuse as medicine,
there is a big trade done in it now, mainly in France,
for the extraction of its oil as a perfume fixer,
and there is undoubtedly a big future
ahead for it for this purpose,
not only on the Continent, but in this country.

Clary cultivations propagated by seed,
should be sown in the spring.

When fit to move,
the seedlings should be transplanted
to an open piece of ground, a foot apart each way,
if required in large quantities.

After the plants have taken root,
they will require no further care
but to be kept free of weeds.

The winter and spring following,
the leaves will be in perfection.

As the plant is a biennial only,
dying off the second summer,
after it has ripened its seeds,
there should be young plants
annually raised for use.


Magic

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