The stone flower I want to present today is called Salvia marmarea.

Sage may be known to most as a tea, medicinal plant or spice.

So I believe that it is obvious to plant experts that I have used a single sage flower as a model.

However, sage blossom does not in itself say so much. The sage is one of the plants that are represented as a native plant all over the world except in Australia and Antarctica, and accordingly has developed countless varieties, over 900 by now.

The pollination of the sage plants is also very different. While bees and bumblebees take care of this in our latitudes, hummingbirds are responsible, for example, for South and Central American sage varieties.

For the sculptor, this large selection of sage varieties on the one hand spoils the choice, but on the other hand one always finds a flower shape that can be convincingly converted into stone.



It seemed a little too difficult for me to make an entire inflorescence with eight or more single flowers made entirely of marble. With marble you reach the limits of what is possible (although I would be tempted to try it).

The single flower was already quite complex to make.

On the one hand because it is not easy to hollow out one side without damaging the other, on the other hand because it only becomes really beautiful when you achieve the level of transparency that makes the flower appear airy.

In the shelter, we are dealing with a stately specimen of Salvia marmarea, which reaches a proud 1.90 meters, and provided that it is well cared for, has an astonishingly long lifespan.