Salazaria mexicana

Salazaria mexicana, Bladder Sage is a rather delicate, 3 feet tall bush with intricately arranged purple flowers; the whole effect is to make it appear ghostly.

Bladder Sage grows in many diverse areas of the deserts. In most areas of California give full sun and no water after the 3rd or 4th watering. In Desert areas water through the first season. I've seen this little shrub in sandy washes, on soils with so much calcium they look like concrete, and on volcanic almost rock. Grows with Cucurbita palmata, Peucephyllum schottii, Nicotiana obtusifolia, Atriplex hymenelytra, Xylorhiza tortifolia, Desert Willow, Arctostaphylos glauca,  Sphaeralcea ambigua, Encelia farinosa, and Physalis crassifolia, among boulders in the creosote woodland.

At the Santa Margarita Nursery we have it planted in sandy gravel, in full sun against a reflecting rock wall and it survived 2013! Two inches of rainfall, no rain for most of a year and then 6 nights of below 10F and it lived. Just amaaazing! Look ma, no water!

I was out 'filming' a little video about this plant in Yucca Valley and a bee (I don't know which as it as a blur) chased me for a quarter of a mile even after I scrabbled into the Jeep and closed the windows. The bee wanted a piece of me for taking a video of his plant. He? never stung me, just bounced on my head. I guess I can say Salazaria mexicana, Bladder Sage is well loved by native bees.

Synonym: Scutellaria mexicana.