Tehachapi News

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While some uncertainty and misidentifications of native plants are common, I have found that in the Tehachapi area, there is more confusion surrounding one particular shrub than there is about any other plant. This misunderstood flora is the widespread Sagebrush.

Now why would such a well-known plant, whose name and presence are so ubiquitous in the drier areas of the rural West, be a source of confusion? Most of the muddle originates with the shrub’s common name and the way people incorrectly shorten it.

Sagebrush is in the Artemisia genus — the species in our area is Great Basin Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), which is the indicator or signature plant species of the Great Basin Desert that covers much of Nevada and parts of Eastern California.

Great Basin Sagebrush is actually easy to identify with its pale gray or silvery-green wedge-shaped leaves (with three lobes on the end like a trident, hence the specific name) and dark shreddy bark. 

The genus Artemisia is sometimes referred to as the “Wormwood” genus because it includes the wormwoods, a group of aromatic, woody herbs whose pungent leaves are one of the ingredients in Absorbine Jr. muscle ointment and the infamous green liqueur called absinthe.

The problem begins when people drop the “brush” ending off the name and simply refer to “sagebrush” as “sage,” which are entirely different plants in an entirely different genus. The Sages are even in a different family, the well-known mint family (Labiatae).

To refer to “sagebrush” as simply “sage” is akin to calling a “toothbrush” just a “tooth” — you’re not merely shortening the word, you are changing it into another word that means something else. Sages and Sagebrushes are both hardy groups of plants found growing in the West, but they are very different plants with very different foliage, appearance, scent, flowers, qualities, ancestry and more.

Perhaps on the morning after a rain some 200 years ago, an Englishman in the American West was riding his horse through a dense stand of Artemesia, and its tangy, penetrating aroma and pale leaves reminded him of culinary sage (Salvia officinalis) from back home and he bestowed the name “sagebrush.” It would have been less confusing if he had chosen a brand-new name instead of amending an old one.

There was no confusion among the Nüwa (Kawaiisu) Indian people of the Tehachapi area, who call sagebrush “so-hove” and traditionally had many uses for this tough shrub. Shredded strips of sagebrush bark were pounded soft and used as a lining inside patsa (shoes) for warmth in winter and a small bundle of the bark was also used as a cork or stopper for woven water bottles. Sagebrush wood was also used for the vital fire-making drills.

In addition, sagebrush fuel was used for roasting pine nuts and other cooking, and so-hove leaves were also boiled and either the steaming fumes inhaled or the beverage was drunk as a remedy for colds and coughs. Aphids also cause a gum or lac substance to be deposited on the leaves, and this sticky material was gathered, warmed by a fire and used to fashion small tool handles for bone awls or used to embed knives into wooden or antler handles. Bundles of so-hove stems and leaves were burned as smudge sticks or incense.

Great Basin Sagebrush offers good browse for deer and cattle and often grows in difficult places like very steep slopes and along dry seasonal creekbeds.
In addition to the misunderstanding about the sagebrush name, Artemesia tridentata is also frequently mistaken for another common drought-tolerant shrub called Rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus nauseosus).

Sage Lane, located between Highway 202 and Cherry Lane, was inaccurately named for an abundance of sage, which upon closer inspection isn’t sage. It isn’t  even sagebrush. It is the fall-blooming, bright yellow-blossomed rabbitbrush, which once supplied beekeeper Pete Sander’s bees with autumn honey.

Sagebrush is one of the finest examples how common names can be such a source of confusion and why botanists are so fond of the clarity provided by scientific names.

With all these winter storms we’ve been having, don’t forget to stop and rub some sagebrush leaves between your palms, releasing the delicious scent that seems most tangible after a rain or snow.

Just don’t call it sage.

Have a good week.