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Desert Plants You Can
Tell by Their Odors
Many desert plants are distinctive for their strong odors, often
pleasant and sometimes offensive. They are usually sturdy, beautiful
plants with an unusual device for self preservation. Some of them have
been used medicinally by Indians. Naturalist Edmund Jaeger describes
these plants and tells his experiences with them in an article that will
prove a fascinating lesson in botany for every desert hiker.
By EDMUND JAEGER
Curator of Plants
Riverside Municipal Museum
Illustrations by the Author
WIDELY spread among
hillside rocks, sand-wash borders
and on brush covered desert
plains from Utah and Arizona to
California and northern Baja California,
is a small shrub with greenishyellow,
switch-like branches, known as
Turpentine Bush or Cordoncillo (Spanish,
"twisted cord").
To the botanists it is Thamnosma
montana, montana meaning "of the
mountains." It is a member of the
Rhue Family and is closely related to
the orange and lemon. Like them, its
fruits are covered with myriads of
small pustulate oil glands. These are
present everywhere on the surface of
the stem and leaves too. The oil they
contain even has an odor much like
that of the orange. It is this pungent
odor that gives the plant its generic
name Thamnosma, literally, "the bush
that smells" (Greek thamnos, a bush
and osme, smell).
When the herbage is first crushed
the odor that rises is often so pronounced
it is highly unpleasant. I long
ago found that in lesser amounts the
smell is very agreeable, much like good
old-fashioned cocoanut pie. Sometimes
I purposely crush the green
stems in my hands, and, about five
minutes later, place my cupped palms
to my nose to detect the pleasant
odor of cocoanut. Some of the
students whose attention I have called
to this, now almost affectionately call
this shrub the "Cocoanut-pie bush."
I later learned that Thamnosma had
things other than the odor that were
pronounced. In April, 1939 I was
Desert plants with distinct odors, left to right—Isomeris (Bladder Pod),
Pectis papposa (Chinch-weed) and Porophyllum gracile (Porophyllum).
Edmund Jaeger, curator of plants,
Riverside Municipal Museum.
camping in the McCullough Mountains
of southern Nevada making sketches
for my book, Desert Wild Flowers. I
had rubbed a few green Thamnosma
stems in my hands to get the cocoanut
odor; the day was warm and, feeling
an itching under my knee, I scratched
the skin. A few minutes later I began
to feel heat there and not long afterwards
I had all the sensations produced
by a first degree burn. The severe
burning continued through the
night and next morning when I inspected
the area between the ligaments
under the knee I realized there was
good reason for the pain. The skin
had been eaten away and an angry
looking patch of raw flesh was exposed.
It became so painful I could scarcely
walk. Later, when the tissue did not
heal promptly, I consulted a doctor
and a healing ointment was prescribed.
Some months afterward I was motoring
south through Goldfield, Nevada,
where I met a mining engineer. We
had not been chatting long in his office
until he produced a dusty bundle of
dried plant stems. "Tell me what this
is," he asked. "The Indians in Death
Valley gave it to me and said they
make a strong tea from it to blister the
skin when they have painful rheumatism.
"Furthermore they said that if you
drink the tea, not quite so strong, it
will make your stomach so hot you
will have queer dreams and visions that
will tell you where long lost keepsakes
can surely be found."
SEPTEMBER, 1954 11