Salvia deserta is a perennial plant

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or simply perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. The term is often used to differentiate a plant from shorter lived annuals and biennials. The term is sometimes misused by commercial gardeners or horticulturalists to describe only herbaceous perennials...

 that is native to Xinjiang

Xinjiang

Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...

 province in China, and the countries of Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...

 and Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan

Kyrgyzstan , officially the Kyrgyz Republic is one of the world's six independent Turkic states . Located in Central Asia, landlocked and mountainous, Kyrgyzstan is bordered by Kazakhstan to the north, Uzbekistan to the west, Tajikistan to the southwest and China to the east...

. It grows in wastelands, sandy grasslands, and along streams in forests at elevations from 300 to 1800 m (984.3 to 5,905.5 ft).

Salvia deserta grows on erect stems to 70 cm (27.6 in) tall, with ovate

Leaf shape

In botany, leaf shape is characterised with the following terms :* Acicular : Slender and pointed, needle-like* Acuminate : Tapering to a long point...

 to lanceolate-ovate leaves. Inflorescences are 4-6 flowered verticillasters in elongated terminal raceme

Raceme

A raceme is a type of inflorescence that is unbranched and indeterminate and bears pedicellate flowers — flowers having short floral stalks called pedicels — along the axis. In botany, axis means a shoot, in this case one bearing the flowers. In a raceme, the oldest flowers are borne...

s or panicle

Panicle

A panicle is a compound raceme, a loose, much-branched indeterminate inflorescence with pedicellate flowers attached along the secondary branches; in other words, a branched cluster of flowers in which the branches are racemes....

s, with a blue-purple to purple corolla that is 9 to 10 mm (0.354330708661417 to 0.393700787401575 in) long. It is very closely related to Salvia nemorosa

Salvia nemorosa

Salvia nemorosa is a hardy herbaceous perennial plant native to a wide area of central Europe and Western Asia.It is an attractive plant that is easy to grow and propagate, with the result that it has been passed around by gardeners for many years...

, and is distinguished by having purple-red bracts.