Artemisia californica Less.Asteraceae (Sunflower Family)NativeCoastal SagebrushCalifornia Sagebrush |
December Photo
Plant Characteristics:
Grayish shrub 6-16 dm. high, the lvs. numerous, strigulose, the lower 1-5
cm. long, palmately once or twice parted into linear-filiform segms. less than 1
mm. wide, the upper sometimes entire and fascicled; heads many, in long racemose
panicles; invol. 2-3 mm. long; fls. rather numerous, the rays 6-10 and disk
15-30; phyllaries dry, imbricate; aks. with a minute squamellate crown.
Habitat:
Lower slopes and fans below 2500 ft.; Coastal Sage Scrub, Coastal Strand,
etc.; cismontane, L. Calif. n. to cent. Calif.; San Clemente, Santa Catalina,
Santa Cruz, San Miguel and Santa Rosa Ids.
Aug.-Dec.
Name:
Artemisia, wife of Mausolus, king of Caria. (Munz,
Flora So. Calif. 116).
The Greek goddess Artemis
(Diana in Roman mythology) is said to have benefited so much from a plant of
this family that she gave it her own name of Artemis.
(Dale 52). Californica,
indicates where the plant was first found.
(Dale 13).
General:
Very common in the study area. Photographed
specimens are from Big Canyon and Santa Ana Heights. (my comments).
This was a very important plant to the Cahuilla Indians, the inhabitants
of the Colorado Desert, the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. Products
made from the plant were considered essential for proper maturation of girls
into women. Beginning with the onset of menstruation, young girls were
given a tea made of the boiled plant and provided elaborate instructions
concerning womanly arts. The
decoction was taken just before the commencement of each menstrual period
throughout a woman's life. This use
was accompanied by various menstrual restrictions: for example, no salt, grease,
or meat could be eaten for several days after drinking of the tea. The Cahuilla also used the leaves to relieve colds.
(Bean and Saubel 42).
Indians used the seeds of A.
tridentata for flour. They made
a bitter tea from the leaves to use as a treatment for sore eyes and colds, as a
hair tonic and to alleviate stomach disorders. (Clarke 134).
The leaves of Coastal Sagebrush have a clean, bitter, pleasantly aromatic
fragrance. The Spanish Californians
called the plant "Romerillo" and regarded it as a panacea for all
ills. They drank a tea of it for
bronchial troubles and used a strong wash of it for wounds and swellings.
Early miners are reported to have spread sprays of it on their beds to
drive away fleas. Even though it
smells like sage and has the common name of sage, it is not a true sage or Salvia. (Dale 52)
(Parsons 383).
Dale quotes almost exactly from Parsons in the part concerning the
Spanish-Americans. Parsons
was published in 1909. (my
comments). A
number of drought-deciduous shrubs are metabolically active at low water
tensions (measured in units of mega Pascals MPa and indicates the water tension
or negative pressure in the xylem column of plants; the more the negative
number, he lower the water tensions; a water tension or negative pressure of
-8.5 MPa is equivalent to a pressure of more than 1200 pounds per square inch).
A good example of this can be seen in black sage, Salvia mellifera, which
exhibits a seasonal dimorphism in leaf morphology, with large and relatively
mesophytic leaves with no obvious drought-tolerating characteristics in spring
and a limited number of smaller, more sclerophyllous leaves in summer.
Although a few terminal leaves represent only a small part of the
seasonal leaf area of the plants, they are capable of maintaining low levels of
net photosynthesis at very low water tensions.
While it has not been investigated physiologically, seasonal leaf
dimorphism has been observed in a large number of other drought-deciduous
subshrubs in California. Examples include California sage, (Artemisia californica), Encelia
californica, Isomeris arborea, Eriophyllum
confertiflorum, Brickellia californica,
and Haplopappus squarrosus.
Most all of these species with white sage (Salvia
apiana), S. leucophylla, sticky monkey (Diplacus
sp.), exhibit seasonal leaf dimorphism and lose all of their leaves (and
often much of their above-ground stems) with full levels of summer drought.
Only a few species, such as black sage, will maintain some xerophytic
leaves that last all summer into the next growing season.
(Rundel, Philip W. "Structure and Function in California Chaparral.
" Fremontia, A Journal of the California Native Plant Society."
October 1986. p. 7).
See Encelia californica, for
additional information on drought-deciduous communities. (my
comment). Delfina Cuero, a Kumeyaay or Southern Diegueno Indian, made the following
comments about Artemisia californica in her autobiography:
"Grind the leaves and use fresh as poultice on ant bites or boil and
use for tea when ill; boil and bathe in it for measles.
It was dried and used as a tobacco for smoking also." (Shipek 85). The Chumash, Indians of the Santa Barbara region, used Heteromeles
arbutifolia and Artemisia californica as foreshafts on cane
arrows. Cane arrows were made of a light material with a hardwood foreshaft.
The cane arrow was light, fast and well suited to the simpler, less
powerful bows of the southern California Indians.
(Campbell 283).
Over 100 species, of North
America and South America. (Munz, Flora
So. Calif. 116).
Text Ref:
Hickman, Ed. 203; Munz. Calif.
Flora 1236; Munz, Flora So. Calif.
117.
Photo Ref:
Dec 1 82 # 12A,13A; Sept 1 83 # 11; Oct-Nov 83 # 18.
Identity: by R. De Ruff.
First Found: December 1982.
Computer Ref: Plant Data 145
Have plant specimen.
Last edit 7/14/05
December Photo October Photo