Artemisia tridentata

Artemisia Tridentata

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Artemisia tridentata

Artemisia tridentata (also called sagebrush/common sagebrush, big sagebrush, blue/black sagebrush or mountain sagebrush) is a shrub

Shrub

A shrub or bush is a horticulture rather than strictly Botany category of woody plant, distinguished from a tree by its multiple stems and lower height, usually less than 5-6 m tall....
or small tree

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
from the family Asteraceae

Asteraceae

The family Asteraceae or Compositae is the largest family of flowering plants, in terms of number of species.The name 'Asteraceae' is derived from the type genus Aster , while 'Compositae', an older but still valid name, means composite and refers to the characteristic inflorescence, a special type of pseudanthium found in o...
. Some botanists treat it in the segregate

Segregate (taxonomy)

In Alpha taxonomy, a segregate, or a segregate taxon is created when a taxon is split off, from another taxon. This other taxon will be better known, usually bigger, and will continue to exist, even after the segregate taxon has been split off....
genus Seriphidium, as S. tridentatum (Nutt.) W. A. Weber, but this is not widely followed. The name "sagebrush" is also used for several related members of the genus Artemisia
Artemisia (plant)

Artemisia is a large, diverse genus of plants with between 200 to 400 species belonging to the daisy family Asteraceae. It comprises hardy herbs and shrubs known for their volatile oils....
, such as California Sagebrush

Artemisia californica

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 ....
(Artemisia californica).

It is a coarse, hardy silvery-grey bush with yellow flower

Flower

A flower, sometimes known as a bloom or blossom, is the reproduction structure found in flowering plants . The biological function of a flower is to mediate the union of male sperm with female ovum in order to produce seeds....
s and grows in arid sections of the western United States

United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
.

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Artemisia tridentata (also called sagebrush/common sagebrush, big sagebrush, blue/black sagebrush or mountain sagebrush) is a shrub

Shrub

TREE

TREE was a Boston hardcore punk band formed in the summer of 1990. They were active in the Boston music scene until disbanding in 2002....
from the family Asteraceae

Asteraceae

Segregate (taxonomy)

Artemisia californica

Flower

United States

Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
desert. Along rivers or in other relatively wet areas, sagebrush can grow as tall as 3 m (10 feet), but is more typically 1-2 m tall.

Sagebrush has a strong pungent fragrance, especially when wet, which is not unlike common sage

Common sage

Salvia officinalis is a small perennial evergreen subshrub, with woody stems, grayish leaves, and blue to purplish flowers. It is native to the Mediterranean region and commonly grown as a kitchen and medicinal herb or as an ornamental garden plant....
. It is, however, unrelated to common sage and has a bitter taste. It is thought that this odor serves to discourage browsing.

Sagebrush leaves

Leaf

In botany, a leaf is an above-ground plant Organ specialized for photosynthesis. For this purpose, a leaf is typically flat and thin, to expose the cells containing chloroplast to light over a broad area, and to allow light to penetrate fully into the tissues....
are wedge-shaped 1-4 cm long and 0.3-1 cm broad, and are attached to the branch by the narrow end. The outer and wider end is generally divided into three lobes (although leaves with two or four lobes are not uncommon), hence the scientific name tridentata. The leaves are covered with fine silvery hairs, which are thought to keep the leaf cool and minimize water loss. Most of the leaves are carried year-round, as sagebrush tends to grow in areas where winter precipitation is greater than summer precipitation.

Sagebrush flowers in the late summer or early fall. The flowers are yellow and are carried in long, slender clusters.

There are five subspecies

Subspecies

In biology, subspecies is the taxonomic rank immediately subordinate to a species. A subspecies is a taxonomic group which is less distinct than the Common descent or species from which it originates....
:

Artemisia tridentata subsp. parishii (A. Gray) H. M. Hall & Clem. (Syn. A. parishii A. Gray, A. tridentata var. parishii (A. Gray) Jeps.)
Artemisia tridentata subsp. tridentata
Artemisia tridentata subsp. vaseyana (Rydb.) Beetle (Syn. A. tridentata var. vaseyana (Rydb.) B. Boivin, A. vaseyana Rydb.)
Artemisia tridentata subsp. wyomingensis Beetle & A. L. Young (Syn. A. tridentata var. wyomingensis (Beetle & A. L. Young) S. L. Welsh)
Artemisia tridentata subsp. xericensis Winward ex Rosentreter & R. G. Kelsey

Sagebrush leaves compare favorably to alfalfa

Alfalfa

Alfalfa is a flowering plant in the pea family Fabaceae cultivated as an important forage crop. In the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand it is known as lucerne and as lucerne grass in south Asia....
for livestock

Livestock

Livestock is the term used to refer to a domesticated animal intentionally reared in an agricultural setting to produce things such as food or fibre, or for its labour....
nutrition

Nutrition

Nutrition is the provision, to cells and organisms, of the materials necessary to support life. Many common health problems can be prevented or alleviated with good nutrition....
value. However, they also contain oils that are toxic to the symbiotic

Symbiosis

The term symbiosis commonly describes close and often long-term interactions between different biological species. The term was first used in 1879 by the Germany mycology Heinrich Anton de Bary, who defined it as "the living together of unlike organisms"....
bacteria in the rumen

Rumen

The rumen, also known as a paunch, forms the larger part of the reticulorumen, which is the first chamber in the alimentary canal of ruminant animals....
of most ruminant

Ruminant

Physiologically, a ruminant is a mammal of the order Artiodactyla that digests plant-based food by initially softening it within the animal's first stomach, known as the rumen, then regurgitating the semi-digested mass, now known as cud, and chewing it again....
s. These oils have the greatest effect on cattle

Cattle

Cattle, colloquially referred to as cows, are domestication ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. They are raised as livestock for meat , dairy products , leather and as draft animals ....
. Cattle that resort to sagebrush due to the lack of other fodder

Fodder

In agriculture, fodder or animal feed is any foodstuff that is used specifically to feed domesticated livestock, such as cattle, goats, sheep, horses, chickens and pigs....
in the winter often freeze to death before starving, as they rely in large part on the heat of their digestive

Digestion

Digestion is the mechanical and chemical breaking down of food into smaller components, to a form that can be Absorption, for instance, by a blood stream....
action for warmth. Ranchers call this condition "hollow belly". Sheep

Sheep

#REDIRECT Domestic sheep...
can tolerate moderate consumption of sagebrush leaves, especially the fresh spring buds. Pronghorn

Pronghorn

The pronghorn , also pronghorn antelope or prong buck, is a species of ungulate mammal native to interior western and central North America....
are the only large herbivore

Herbivore

Herbivory is a form of predation in which an organism, known as an herbivore, heterotrophs principally autotrophs such as plants, algae and photosynthesizing bacteria....
to browse sagebrush extensively. As pronghorn are the only remaining large herbivore that evolved

Evolution

In biology, evolution is change in the heritability trait of a population of organisms from one generation to the next. These changes are caused by a combination of three main processes: variation, reproduction, and selection....
along with sagebrush (deer

Deer

Deer are the ruminant mammals forming the family Cervidae . A number of broadly similar animals from related families within the order even-toed ungulate are often also called deer....
are a more recent arrival from Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent. It covers 8.6% of the Earth's total surface area and, with over 4 billion people, it contains more than 60% of the world's current human population....
), this is not surprising. There is speculation that some of the herbivores that went extinct in North America

North America

North America is the northern continent of the Americas, situated in the Earth's northern hemisphere and almost totally in the western hemisphere....
at the end of the Pleistocene

Pleistocene

The Pleistocene is the epoch from 1.8 million to 10,000 years Before Present covering the world's recent period of repeated glaciations. The name pleistocene is derived from the Greek and ....
such as the Ground Sloth

Ground sloth

Ground sloths are a diverse group of extinct sloths, mammals in the edentate superorder Xenarthra. They may have died out as recently as 1550 AD in Hispaniola and Cuba, but had long since been extinct on the mainland of North America and South America....
or the American Camel

Camel

Camels are even-toed ungulates within the genus Camelus. The dromedary, one-humped or Arabian camel has a single hump and is well known for its healthy low fat milk, and the Bactrian camel has two humps....
were also capable of browsing sagebrush.

Sagebrush is not fire-tolerant and relies on wind-blown seeds from outside the burned area for re-establishment. This is in contrast to many of the other plants which share its habitat, such as Rabbitbrush

Rabbitbrush

Rabbitbrush is a common name for plants in two related genus of the family Asteraceae:* Chrysothamnus — most species, including Green Rabbitbrush...
, Ephedra

Ephedra (genus)

Ephedra is a genus of gymnosperm shrubs, the only genus in the family Ephedraceae and order Ephedrales. These plants occur in dry climates over a wide area mainly in the northern hemisphere, across southern Europe, north Africa, southwest and central Asia, southwestern North America, and, in the southern hemisphere, in South A...
and bunchgrasses, which can root-sprout after a fire. Cheatgrass has invaded much of the sagebrush habitat, and if left unchecked could possibly create a fire cycle that is too frequent to allow sagebrush to re-establish itself.

In the Great Basin

Great Basin

The Great Basin is a large, arid region of the western United States. Its boundaries depend on how it is defined. Its most common definition is the contiguous drainage basin, roughly between the Wasatch Mountains, in Utah and the Sierra Nevada , that has no natural outlet to the sea....
, sagebrush is the dominant plant life in the Upper Sonoran and Boreal life zone

Life zone

The Life Zone concept was developed by Clinton Hart Merriam in 1889 as a means of describing areas with similar plant and animal communities. Merriam observed that the changes in these communities with an increase in latitude at a constant elevation are similar to the changes seen with an increase in elevation at a constant latitude....
s, and is the primary understory

Understory

Understory is the term for the area of a forest which grows in the shade of the emergent or Canopy . Plants in the understory consist of a mixture of seedlings and saplings of canopy trees together with understory shrubs and herbs....
species in the Transitional zone between them. Prior to heavy grazing by cattle and sheep of these areas, sagebrush is thought to have been less dominant, and perennial

Perennial plant

A perennial plant or perennial is a plant that lives for more than two years. When used by gardeners or horticulturalists, this term applies specifically to perennial herbaceous plants....
grass

Grass

Grass is the common word that generally describes monocotyledonous green plants. The family Poaceae are the "true grasses" and include most plants grown as grains, for pasture, and for lawns ....
es more common. In the Lower Sonoran life zone, sagebrush is generally replaced by shadscale or greasewood

Greasewood

Greasewood is a genus of one or two species of flowering plants. Traditionally it has been treated in the family Chenopodiaceae, but the APG II system, of 2003, places it in the family Sarcobataceae....

Sagebrush is the state flower of Nevada

Nevada

Nevada is a U.S. state located in the Western United States of the United States of America. The capital is Carson City and the largest city is Las Vegas, Nevada....
.

Use and toxicity

The plant is highly allergenic to humans, and can cause dermatitis if applied to the skin of sensitive individuals. The plant's volatile oils are metabolized in the liver into toxic compounds which can cause internal blood clotting and the formation of micro-thrombi in the liver and digestive tract.

Native Americans used sagebrush administered internally as a medicine to halt internal bleeding caused by battle wounds and childbirth. The plant is very toxic to internal parasites and was used to expel worms. The plants oils are toxic to the liver and digestive system of humans if taken internally, with the toxic symptoms subsiding 24-48 hours after ingesting the plant.

A tea made from sagebrush was used internally and as a topical dressing to treat infections by Native Americans in the Mountain West of North America.

Artemisia tridentata

Use and toxicity

See also

External links