Named in Hortulus and Capitulare de villis
Sage
Salvia officinalis
What was written
Walahfrid Strabo gives sage the opening place in the Hortulus, before every other plant in the garden he kept at Reichenau. He writes of it as deserving that first place, and observes a gardener's problem rather than a physician's one: left uncut, the old woody growth crowds and kills the new. The Latin name shares a root with salvere, to be well — an etymology the monastic writers themselves drew attention to.
The plant itself
A woody perennial of the Mediterranean, growing to about sixty centimetres, with grey-green leaves whose surface is covered in fine hairs. It survives northern winters in dry, poor soil far better than in rich, wet ground.
Still growing
Since the plant was written into that garden list, botanists, herbaria and ordinary observers have recorded finding it 35,153 times.
Live count from GBIF, cached for a week.