Blue sage is sold as a smudge bundle under two different plants, and which one you have depends on the supplier.
- Salvia azurea — azure blue sage, a true salvia of the central and eastern United States, with pale blue flowers
- Artemisia tridentata — big sagebrush, not a sage at all but a wormwood, and the plant most often bundled as ‘blue sage’ in the western United States
Both are dried and bound into a wand and burned the same way as white sage, and both give a lighter, sweeter smoke than Salvia apiana. Sagebrush is the more resinous of the two and burns longer.