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- Fremont Cottonwood (Populus fremontii)
Common name: Cottonwood Scientific name: Populus fremontii Description: A fast-growing deciduous tree with furrowed gray bark on mature tree parts and light green smooth bark on new stems. Leaves are broad based and roughly triangular, with toothed edges. Uses: Predominantly used as fuel and for construction. Parts may be processed for use as chewing gum (Apache, Acoma/Laguna, Navajo). Also used for a wide variety of medicinal/ceremonial/symbolic purposes (including hair/textile dyes), in addition to carvings (such as kachina dolls), basketry, and tool parts (esp. handles for lithic blades). - Dried Bottle Gourds (Lagenaria siceraria)
Common name: Calabash; Bottle Gourd; Long Melon; Opo Squash Scientific name: Lagenaria siceraria Description: Bottle gourds grow in a variety of shapes and sizes. The leaves are large and broad, flowers are white to yellow, and the mature gourds are typically shades of green. Uses: Often carved into bowls/cups,dippers,spoons, or masks - by Acoma, Apache, Cochiti, Havasupai, Hopi, Keres, Mohave, Navajo, Papago, Pima, and Yuma). Predominantly used as a container or utensil, however, also used for ceremonial/ritual purposes (as a trumpet and/or rattle). - Wolfberry (Lycium spp.)
Common names: Wolfberry, Boxthorn Scientific name: Lycium spp. Description: A medium-sized woody shrub with small, grouped thick narrow leaves, small white to light purple flowered, and bright orange-red berries. Uses: The berries may be dried and eaten as a snack or processed into sauces and/or jams. - Night-blooming Cereus (Peniocereus greggii)
Common names: Dutchmans' Pipe; Arizona Queen-of-the-Night Scientific name: Peniocereus greggii Description: The night-blooming cereus is a perennial succulent with gray-brown stems and waxy white fragrant flowers that bloom at night in the summer months, with each individual flower lasting only the single night of its bloom. The plant also produces an oblong red-orange fruit and has a fleshy root. Uses: Previously used for a variety of medicinal purposes, predominantly for control of diabetes. The fruits and roots were also used as food, as were the flowers and young stalks. - Ironwood (Olneya tesota)
Common name: Ironwood Scientific name: Olneya tesota Description: Ironwood is a desert evergreen with dark gray bark and small dark green leaves clustered like those on mesquite. The tree produces small pinkish flowers and seed pods between May and early summer. Desert ironwood makes excellent firewood; it burns long and hot and makes good coals. Harvest for woodcarvings and charcoal has nearly extirpated large trees in most of Sonora, and campers and illegal woodcutters are depleting accessible populations in the United States. Because of their slow growth rate and historic-modern depletion, it has become illegal to harvest and/or burn ironwood; this tree is protected in both Sonora and Arizona. Uses: The wood is extremely dense; it will not float in water. The Seri Indians favor the ironwood to make their famous wood carvings - a craft developed in the early 1960s for tourist trade. The seeds could also be used as food, if leached and then ground. - Mesquite (Prosopis spp.)
Common name: Mesquite Scientific name: Prosopis spp. Description: Mesquite is a relatively common tree in the southern Southwest, with a variety of species present as far north as the Verde Valley in Arizona. The tree grows relatively quickly, has catkin-like clusters of leaves, and sweet-smelling bead pods. The pods are either sweet or bitter depending on the variety. Uses: Mesquite has been an important food source for indigenous peoples. The Tohono O’odham (Papago) are on the verge of commercial success with this crop. Mesquite flour also has major conservation potential, in that it can be made into “bread” without baking. The Pima have traditionally crushed and soaked mesquite pods in water to produce a drink called vau. Mesquite wood is hard, attractive, and in high demand for quality furniture. Mesquite has recently surpassed hickory as the most popular smoke flavoring for food. Because of the overharvesting, its wood should not be used for this purpose; burning dried pods imparts the same flavor. Both indigenous peoples and early European/American settlers used the tree's inner bark as material for basketry, coarse fabrics, and medicine to treat a variety of disorders. Gum exuded from the stem is used for manufacture of candy (gumdrops), mucilage for mending pottery, and black dye. - Desert Honeysuckle (Anisicanthus thurberi)
Common names: Desert Honeysuckle Scientific name: Anisicanthus thurberi Description: A woody shrub with oval somewhat hairy leaves and bright orange-red tubular flowers with petals that curl back from the center, exposing long similarly colored stamens and a white pistil. - Mexican Blue Oak (Quercus oblongifolia)
Common name: Blue Oak Scientific name: Quercus oblongifolia Uses: Acorns (nuts) widely eaten as food by Acoma, Apache, Cocopah, Gosiute, Havasupai, Hualapai, Laguna, Mohave, Navajo, Papago, Pima, Southern Paiute, Tewa, Uintah Ute, Yavapai, and Yuma. Variously used for making tools/tool parts (digging sticks, handles, etc.), ceremonial/ritual purposes, and as a tannin (Apache). Sap may also be used as chewing gum or as an adhesive (Navajo). - Sotol (Dasylirion wheeleri)
Common name: Sotol Scientific name: Dasylirion wheeleri Uses: Until a few decades ago, the Tohono O’odham (Papago) wove beautiful sleeping mats by plaiting together sotol leaves after removing marginal teeth. - Jojoba (Simmondsia chinensis)
Common name: Jojoba, Coffeeberry, Goat Nut, Deer Nut, Pignut, Wild Hazel, Quinine Nut, Gray Box Bush Scientific name: Simmondsia chinensis The name "jojoba" originated with the Tohono O'odham people (Papago), who treated burns with an antioxidant salve made from a paste of the jojoba nut. - Shrub Live-Oak (Quercus turbinella)
Common name: Live Oak Scientific name: Quercus turbinella Uses: Acorns (nuts) widely eaten as food by Acoma, Apache, Cocopah, Gosiute, Havasupai, Hualapai, Laguna, Mohave, Navajo, Papago, Pima, Southern Paiute, Tewa, Uintah Ute, Yavapai, and Yuma. Variously used for making tools/tool parts (digging sticks, handles, etc.), ceremonial/ritual purposes, and as a tannin (Apache). Sap may also be used as chewing gum or as an adhesive (Navajo). - Hopbush (Dodonea viscosa)
Common name: Hopbush Scientific name: Dodonea viscosa Uses: The fruit has been used as a substitute for hops in the brewing of beer. The Seri use it as an external remedy for aches. - Roasted Agave Hearts
Subject: Roasted agave hearts. - Creosote (Larrea tridentata)
Common name: Creosote, Greasewood, Covillea Scientific name: Larrea tridentata Description: Creosote is a tough desert evergreen shrub with flexible stems, small greasy or waxy green leaves, and small yellow flowers. The leaves have a distinctive smell, especially following rain. The Tohono O’odham (Papago) and Pima say it was the first plant created. It is the single most widely-used and frequently-employed medicinal herb in the Sonoran Desert. This plant is known as “greasewood” among the O’odham and many ranchers, but to most other people greasewood is Sarcobatus, a Mohave and Great Basin shrub. The Spanish name "gobernadora" is a political commentary - this fairly new name was invented in northern Mexico and meant to be associated with the already established name of "hediondilla" (little stinker). The Pima name is shegoi. Uses: Widely used for medicinal purposes by Acoma, Apache, Gosiute, Hopi, Jemez, Keres, Navajo, Pima, and Southern Paiute. Also used variously for construction, as tools (such as digging sticks and handles), ceremonial/ritual purposes, and carved into knitting needles (Navajo). The Seri smoked the galls like tobacco. The sap (or lac, actually a scale insect) is also used as a sealant (Pima and Papago). - Murphy's Agave (Agave murpheyi)
Common name: Agave, Hohokam Agave Scientific name; Agave murpheyi Descriptive: Murphy's Agave is a relatively small agave variety. The leaves are fleshy, light blue-green to yellow-green, spined along the edges and at the leaf tip, and grow in a rosette from the heart of the plant. Uses: Extensively cultivated for food and fiber by the prehistoric Hohokam of southern Arizona.