National Park Service Klamath Network Featured Creature U.S. Department of the Interior

Natural Resource Stewardship & Science Klamath Network Yerba Santa July 2015 Eriodictyon californicum Field Notes General Description variable checkerspot butterfly, are generally also been used on sores, sprains, flesh more partial to yerba santa. It is said that wounds, insect bites, and to relieve joint Yerba santa, the “holy herb,” has as many bees who visit the flowers of this plant “make pain. names (e.g., mountain balm, bear weed, a deliciously spicy amber honey.” consumptive’s weed, and gum plant, among others) as it does uses. This perennial, Habitat and Distribution evergreen shrub grows to a height of 3–5 ft. This shrub is found in California and and is distinctive for its lanceolate, serrated, Oregon— in the Coast Ranges of California leathery and sticky leaves. There is often a to the Klamath Range in Siskiyou County, as blackish dust on its foliage and smaller well as in the Sierra Nevada Range from branches, courtesy of the black fungi Kern County northwards into Oregon. It Heterosporium californicum. The underside takes to dry, rocky hillsides and ridges, of the leaves are fuzzy, leading to its genus especially in chaparral, oak woodlands, name, Eriodictyon, which is Greek for annual grasslands, and disturbed areas. “woolly net.” Yerba santa flowers are white You’ll also find yerba santa in some mixed to lavender, tubular, clustered, and bloom conifer forests, canyons, and along from May to August. riverbanks. Landscapers will plant yerba santa to help stabilize eroding slopes. Yerba santa does not occur at elevations above 3,500 ft.

Where Found in the Klamath Network Photo: © Mark Turner. Yerba santa’s tubular flowers in bloom. Yerba santa can be found in the chaparral and along roads in Whiskeytown NRA. References Zigmond, M.L. 1981. Kawaiisu Ethnobotany ethnobotany. University of Utah Press, Salt The first Spanish who came to California Lake City, Utah. Photo: © 2009 Gary A. Monroe. Serrated, were so impressed by yerba santa’s leathery leaves of yerba santa. medicinal properties that they called the More Information Ecology plant “holy herb.” Native Americans used http://www.fs.fed.us/wildflowers/plant-of-the- Yerba santa is very drought tolerant and (and herbalists continue to use) yerba week/eriodictyon_sp.shtml santa for a variety of purposes. Its leaves often colonizes disturbed areas in early- to http://plants.usda.gov/plantguide/pdf/cs_erca6.p were boiled in teas for colds, headaches, mid-successional communities. The plant is df also adapted to fire; its soil-stored seeds stomach problems, coughs, gonorrhea, germinate best the spring after a fire, and it asthma, rheumatism, and pneumonia. The Foster, S. & Hobbs, C. (2002) Western can further resprout from rhizomes. Wildlife Kawaiisu, a Native American group who Medicinal Plants and Herbs. NY: Houghton and livestock can eat yerba santa but would live south of the Sierra Nevada, treated Mifflin Company. prefer to eat just about anything else. When gonorrhea by drinking yerba santa tea food is scarce in the winter, the shrub does instead of water for a month (Zigmond help tide over the black-tailed deer. In heavy 1981). The leaves can also be smoked for grazing areas, yerba santa is so disliked and colds and asthma. And Whiskeytown neglected by cattle that the shrub often ends enthusiasts take note: a poultice of yerba up dominating the landscape and forming santa leaves can also help poison oak dense stands. Insect herbivores, like the rashes heal more quickly. This poultice has

EXPERIENCE YOUR AMERICATM July 24, 2015