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| Artemisia californica (Less.) |
Artemisia californica, also known as California sagebrush, of the Asteraceae, is a shrub that grows in coastal sage scrub, coastal strand, chaparral, and dry foothill communities, from sea level to 800 m (2600 ft.). It is native to California and Baja California.
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Physical description
The plant branches from the base and grows out from there, becoming rounded; it grows 1.5 to 2.5 meters (5–8 ft.) tall. The stems of the plant are slender, flexible, and glabrous (hairless) or canescent (fuzzy). The leaves range from 1 to 10 centimeters long and are pinnately divided with 2–4 threadlike lobes less than five centimeters long. They leaves are hairy and light green to gray in color; the margins of the leaves curl under. The inflorescences are leafy, narrow, and sparse. The capitula are less than 5 millimeters in diameter. The pistillate flowers range in number from 6 to 10 and the disk flowers range from 15 to 30, and they are generally yellowish in appearance, but sometimes red. The fruits produced are resinous achenes up to 1.5 millimeters long. There is a pappus present that forms a minute crown on the body of the achene.
The plant contains terpenes which make it quite aromatic.1 Many people regard the species to have a pleasant smell.2
Habitat & cultivation
Artemisia californica needs full sun and likes to grow on west and north slopes. It needs little water and prefers no water in the summer months; it does not seem that soil types affect plant growth much. This plant relies on wildfire for seed germination and burned plants can crown-sprout and keep growing. It is often claimed to be allelopathic: to secrete chemicals into the ground which inhibit other plants from growing near and around the shrub.1
Animals rarely eat Artemisia californica, probably due to the presence of bitter aromatic terpenes, but it does provide good cover for smaller birds and other animals that can fit between its stems.1 It is an important habitat plant for the endangered California Gnatcatcher.1
Uses
Although Artemisia californica is a sagebrush, not a true sage, it can be used in cooking as a spice and can also be made into tea. It has also been used in the past for a treatment to fight coughs and colds.3 It was used by women of the Cahuilla to alleviate menstrual cramps and to ease labor.4
This shrub is also used to rehabilitate disturbed sites of degraded coastal sage scrub.1
References
- ^ a b c d e Forest Service Fire Ecology
- ^ Native Salvias and Artemisias MyMotherLode.com October 15, 2005.
- ^ Ethnobotany
- ^ Forest Service Info Sheet
External links
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Wikipedia content modification information:
- This page was last modified on 28 October 2008, at 00:35.
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