ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION While the utilisation of species belonging to the genus Salvia has a great tradition, their large scale cultivation only started in the 20th century. This can be well demon strated by the story of Salvia sclarea. Although the species can be found widely distributed throughout the Southern regions of the former Soviet Union, it was not until 1922 that it was introduced as a crop for oil production (Zinchenko, 1960). It was reported, that for the next four years, the hectareage and oil production grew to 9500 hectares and 24 metric tonnes. The first attempts at large scale production of the above mentioned species in the USA can be dated to the mid-1940s and by the mid-1990s North Carolina had become the leading producer of clary sage oil in the United States (Lawrence, 1994). Similarly in Europe, the large scale cultivation of S. sclarea only started in the second half of the 20th century, (France, Hungary, Bulgaria etc.). For instance the although plant was introduced into Bulgaria in 1940 from France (Zheljazkov et al., 1996), its large scale cultivation was initiated 14 years later near Sofia and around Plovdiv.
