Big Sagebrush

Artemisia tridentata

Big Sagebrush Basin Sagebrush Common Sagebrush Parts used Uses Habitat and cultivation

Big sagebrush - a woody evergreen shrub, typically 2-10 feet tall. Big sagebrush has a stubby, branched trunk and a grayish-green bark, which shreds with age, and is topped by a rounded crown. Wedge-shaped leaves, about 1 inch long, have three teeth at the tip and are covered with silvery gray hairs that conserve moisture. The leaves of sage brush emit a pleasantly pungent aroma. Tiny yellow to whitish flower heads (September-October) grow in dense clusters at the ends of branchlets.

The American explorer John C. Fremont noted the appearance of big sagebrush during his westward journey through what is now Wyoming in 1842, calling it by the name of its European relative absinthe. The settlers who followed soon came to regard its presence as a good omen, since where it grew in abundance the soil was fertile enough to support farming.

From prehistoric times, the Indians of the West made use of the treelike shrub, which belongs to the same medicinally important genus of plants as European tarragon, absinthe, and mugwort. They chewed the leaves of big sagebrush to ease stomach gas and used a tea made from the leaves to treat other stomach disorders as well as colds and sore eyes. When settlers arrived they took up some of the native uses of the plant and added their own. Big sagebrush preparations were used to treat headache, diarrhea, sore throat, vomiting, and even bullet wounds. Some Indians in the Southwest ground the seeds for flour, and many more set great store by a kind of hair tonic made fragrant with big sagebrush. Pioneers often used the fast-growing shrub as firewood.

PARTS USED

Leaves.

USES

Big sagebrush is rarely used medicinally today, even in folk medicine. Big sagebrush contains a volatile oil that can be added as an aromatic to liqueurs and hair rinses or used as a bug repellent.

HABITAT AND CULTIVATION

One of the most widely distributed native plants in the American West, big sagebrush is found from British Columbia south to Mexico and east to the Dakotas.