Lots of kitties asked about the rabbit in the rabbit brush last week. So I thought I'd do a Thursday 13 on that very common plant in the Great Basin sage scrub complex of plants that occurs around our mountain house.1. Scientific name: Chrysothamnus nauseosus
2. The name means golden shrub.
3. It is also known as Chamisa in Spanish
4. It is in the sunflower family
5. Found from British Columbia to Alberta, south to Texas and northern Mexico.
6. Fall-blooming, with clusters of yellow flowers.
7. Sweetish, resinous smell, aromatic with an almost pine like odor.
8. Up to 4 ft tall.
9. Grass like gray-green leaves.
10. Favorite food of white-tailed and black-tailed jackrabbits. Also attracts butterflies.
11. Native Americans chewed the bark and wood for a chewing gum and used a teas wash for skin sores.
12. Fresh and dried flowers can be used as a dye–gold colors with mordants of alum, copper or tin or chrome for a rust color, or iron for green color.
13. From the fall flowers, bees make a strong-flavored, amber-colored honey.
Mom is trying to get a nice community of sage brush and rabbit brush in our back yard. I love hunting lizards in the these bushes! We get lots of desert cottontails too, but no big jackrabbits.
