One of the big, caney, Winter-flowering salvias of the involucrata group, Salvia karwinskii is a stand-out in the garden with big candelabras of pink flower spikes. Left to its own devices it is an open fountain of canes a couple of metres high, with sparse foliage compared to the canopies of S. involucrata and S. wagneriana.
Leaves are large; 140 mm blades on 50 mm petioles, spear head shaped and 65 mm wide toward the base. Both surfaces are covered in short hairs, making the upper surface a matt green, and the lower surface distinctively pale. The leaves have a mild sweet fragrance, unlike S. involucrata.
Flowers are a peachy pink, out of calyces that grade from golden tan at the base to burgundy at the tips. Combined with the burgundy of the flower stems, the effect is striking. Flower spikes elongate as the season progresses, giving a long-lived show.
Betsy Clebsch writes that it comes from mountain forests above 1200 metres, from southern Mexico to Nicaragua, among pine and oak. Out of caution I grew it first under a midwinter-spring-deciduous Tipuana tree where it leans toward the light and grows several metres high, but it also grows and flowers well in full sun, and handles dry conditions. As the habit is open and caney, it can be pruned to be more compact.