National Geographic Magazine/Volume 31/Number 6/Our State Flowers/The Sagebrush

The Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.)


Nevada's floral queen is not famed for its retiring disposition; neither is it known for its beauty; nor yet is it distinguished for its aggressiveness or the usefulness of its product. Rather, it is content to soften the sternness of the unoccupied, semi-arid lands of the Southwest until the farmer comes along. Into his ear it whispers the information that where it grows alfalfa will flourish. After imparting this information, it is content to endure the woes of surrendering its home. The farmer, using a railroad rail or a plank-drag, clears his ground of it and puts in its stead a field of alfalfa.

The sagebrush belongs to the composite family, and its immediate cousins are widely distributed. They are known as the artemisias, and there are a host of them, many with important uses in the economy of civilization. Artemisia absinthium is popularly known as wormwood; from it comes the bitter, aromatic liquor known as eau or crême d'absinthe. Many of its cousins grow in Asia and Europe, including the mugwort, used by the Germans as a seasoning in cookery; southernwood, used by the British to drive away moths from linen and woolens and to force newly swarmed bees, which have a peculiar antipathy for it, into the hive; and tarragon, used by the Russians as an ingredient for pickling and in the preparation of fish sauce.

Sagebrush itself is found as far east as Colorado and is one of the dominating shrubs of the great basin which lies between the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada Mountains.

The artemisias derived their name from Artemisia, the beautiful wife of King Mausolus. The magnificent tomb she erected to his memory at Halicarnassus has given the name mausoleum to every elaborate tomb from that day to this. Americans thought so highly of this wonderful structure that they duplicated it in the national capital. The Southern Jurisdiction of the Scottish Rite Masons of America copied it for their great American temple, and today Artemisia's architectural conception is one of the show places of one of the most beautiful cities of the earth.

Source: —, ed. (June 1917), “Our State Flowers: The Floral Emblems Chosen by the Commonwealths”, The National Geographic Magazine 31(6): 488. (Illustration from page 503.)