鼠尾草,你是我最好的舞伴(2)

鼠尾草,你是我最好的舞伴

The salvia is a member of the mint family, labiatae, which accounts for its square stems and textured, often fragrant foliage, and for those flowers that look like lips. Incredibly, more than 900 species flourish around the world. They grow in many forms, from delicate rock-garden plants with slender green leaves to six-footers with textured leaves in a range of shades, from chartreuse to dark hunter green, flowering in blues, purples, reds and even yellow.

学习啦在线学习网 　　Many are tropical and must be treated as annuals, but some are hardy enough to winter over, in the mid-Atlantic and tristate areas, especially in Zone 7, where winter temperatures rarely fall to zero.

学习啦在线学习网 　　I have a garden sage, Salvia officinalis, which has survived bitter winters, my neglect and the strangling vines of honeysuckle, to sprout its pleasingly rough gray-green leaves from woody branches. (The leaves are delicious in stuffing and pork dishes.) It has grown to the size of a bushel basket and sends up three-foot stems with fat oval flower buds that are an iridescent purplish white for a few days before they open their big purple flowers. I used to grow it with tricolor garden sage, which has pebbled variegated leaves of purple and green, edged with white. The two were a pleasing combination, but the tricolor conked out during the hard winter (variegated plants are a bit weak).

学习啦在线学习网 　　Another favorite is Mexican bush sage, Salvia leucantha, which some people call a bicolor because its white flowers are hugged by velvety light purple calyxes. It bloomed until frost, but like other tender salvias in this zone, succumbed to the snow and ice last winter.

学习啦在线学习网 　　鼠尾草属于薄荷大家族，是唇形科的一种，茎呈方形，叶片纹理独特，往往带有香味，花朵呈唇形。令人难以置信的是，有超过900个鼠尾草品种生长于世界各地。它们形态各异，有的生有狭长绿叶，生长在精致的岩石花园里;有的高达六英尺(约合1.8米)，叶片带有独特的纹理，颜色从蓖麻酒色到墨绿色不一而足，花朵的颜色则包括蓝色、紫色、红色、甚至黄色。

　　许多鼠尾草属于热带植物，必须当做一年生植物来种植;但也有部分鼠尾草足够坚韧，可以撑过冬天。这些鼠尾草生长在中大西洋地区(mid-Atlantic states，美国行政区划的十个大区之一，由七个州组成：纽约州，宾夕法尼亚州，新泽西州，马里兰州，西弗吉尼亚州，特拉华州和弗吉尼亚州——译注)和三州地区(tristate，美国三州交界地区，尤指纽约州、新泽西州与康涅狄格州的交界处——译注)，尤其是第七区(Zone 7)，那里的冬季温度很少降到零度。

　　我有一株庭院鼠尾草(garden sage)，别名药用鼠尾草(Salvia officinalis)。它并未因冬季的严寒、我的疏于照料以及忍冬藤蔓的缠绕而死去。它的木质茎上生长出了灰绿色的叶片，纹理粗糙得喜人(这些叶片用在填料和猪肉菜肴中很可口)。它已经长到了一蒲式耳(约合36升)的篮子那么大，抽出了三英尺长(约合0.9米)的茎，上面带有肥大的椭圆形花苞。花苞呈现出斑斓带紫的白颜色，再过几天，就会开出硕大的紫色花朵。我曾把它和一株三色庭院鼠尾草种在一起，这株三色庭院鼠尾草有着卵石花纹的紫、绿杂色叶片，边缘则为白色。两株鼠尾草是一个令人愉悦的组合，但是三色鼠尾草没能熬过严冬(杂色植物都有点娇弱)。

学习啦在线学习网 　　另一株我很喜欢的植物，是墨西哥灌木鼠尾草(Mexican bush sage)，别名紫绒鼠尾草(Salvia leucantha)。有人说它是双色花，因为白色花朵的基部有着天鹅绒般的淡紫色花萼。它的花期一直持续到霜冻来临，但和本地区其它柔弱的鼠尾草一样，它也没能熬过去年冬季的冰雪。