Lamiaceae (Labiatae) family.
Inflorescences are used for medicinal purposes.
It grows wild in Central Asia, the Caucasus, Asia Minor, Iran, Afghanistan, and North America. In Ukraine, it is cultivated in the Crimean and Odessa regions, it does not often run wild. The plant is used from the first year of life for 2-3 years.
Clary sage– a perennial herb with a nutmeg smell, up to 120 cm high. The root is taproot, slightly branched. The stems are tetrahedral, hollow, red-violet, pubescent with glandular hairs in the upper part. Basal and lower stem leaves 7-20 cm long, cordate-ovate, wrinkled, with reticulate venation, and notched-toothed margin. To the top of the stem, the leaves are smaller, sessile, and in the inflorescence – membranous-membranous, entire, pink-purple. The flowers are collected in false whorls, forming a paniculate branched inflorescence up to 40 cm long. Whorls, or rings, consist of four to six flowers. Calyx five-toothed, bell-shaped. Corolla two-lipped, pink-violet. Stamens two, ovary four-celled, style with two stigmas. The fruits are brown, rounded, 2-3 cm long, smooth four-nuts.
Blooms in June-August. The fruits ripen in July-September. The inflorescences are harvested during the flowering period, when the seeds in the lower whorls begin to ripen and turn brown. The final harvesting period is determined by the content of essential oil after determination in the chemical laboratory of the state farm.
Mow with a sage harvester or cut the florets with sickles above the top pair of green stem leaves. Harvest within 80-100 c/ha.
According to OST 46-54-76, freshly harvested unground inflorescences of clary sage zoned varieties are used as raw materials for the production of essential oil and concrete.
Not more than (percent) is allowed in raw materials: admixture of leaves and stems of this plant – 15, unripe and overripe parts – 15, weed admixture – 8, moldy and moldy parts – 5. Admixture of other essential oil plants is not allowed.
Raw materials are transported in a shaft and processed without delay (essential oil is quickly lost during storage – 40% in 3 hours).
The inflorescences contain an essential oil, the main component of which is linalyl acetate (70%), also linalool (10-15%), sclareol (odor fixer).
Essential oil, infusion and tincture are used as a digestion-improving, anti-inflammatory agent for nephritis, gastrointestinal diseases.
The Ministry of Health of the Moldavian SSR allowed the use for medicinal purposes of baths and applications with clary sage condensate (a waste product when extracting essential oil from fresh leaves) in the treatment of diseases of the nervous system; polyarthritis, osteomyelitis, deforming arthrosis, trophic ulcers that do not heal for a long time, etc.
Essential oil is used as a nutmeg odor fixative in the perfumery, food industry and winemaking.