Salvia digitaloides is a herbaceous perennial shrub native to the Chinese provinces of Guizhou, Sichuan, and Yunnan, first collected by Scot botanist George Forrest and named by Friedrich Ludwig Emil Diels in Germany in 1912, from Forrest's specimens. In its native habitat it grows between 7,000-11,000 ft elevation in dry shady pine forests, in east-facing scrub oak forests, and on grassy hillsides and valleys. Uncommon in horticulture, seeds have been collected and plants displayed at Quarryhill Botanical Garden in Glen Ellyn, California. The plant is used medicinally in Yunnan.