Texas sage flower - Leucophyllum frutescens

Bengali Name :	টেক্সাস স্যাজ.
Common Name :	Texas sage, Purple sage, Texas silverleaf, etc.
Botanical Name :	Leucophyllum frutescens
Family :	Scrophulariaceae

Name of the flower is Texas sage, from the name it is easily understandable about the origin of this flowering plant. Apart from Texas and America it is also native to the Mexican region. It has several common names such as Texas rangers, Wild lilac, Purple sage, Barometer bush, etc.

The plant prefers warm and desert climate to grow (poor soil condition). As Bangladesh is much warmer during the summer, I believe it is a reason behind the plant to grow well in Bangladesh. Although it doesn't grow as bushy and dense as of the native region. Anyway, binomial name of the plant is Leucophyllum frutescens and it pertains to the plant family Scrophulariaceae.

Texas sage is a shrubby plant which is very dense. It is a semi evergreen plant. The leafs are silvery (hence another name Silverleaf sage). The reason behind the silvery because of the grayish hairy things on it. Wooly leafs are wavy, and alternately arrange around the stem. Shape of the leafs are elliptical or oval.

Texas sage brings numerous flowers on it. The color of the flower is purple, lavender, etc. It is having a tubular shape with five lobbed petals. Upper lip comprises of two closely placed petals, whereas the lower lip contains three petals which are having a gap in between. In native region the plant gets covered with flower, but in Bangladesh it only brings few flowers (still quite a lot).

It requires humidity to pop out the flowers for this plant. That's why the plant brings the flower before the rain. At the native region the plant is also known as Barometer bush (name shared with few other similar plants from the genus for this forecasting ability).

Photos of this article were taken from the roadside near the road at Badda, Dhaka, Bangladesh (বাড্ডা, ঢাকা, বাংলাদেশ). It was in front of a patrol refuel pump. GPS coordinate is (23°46'14.80"N, 90°25'29.18"E). It was the month of June 2015 when the flowers were blooming.


This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://icwow.blogspot.com/