Four-wing Saltbush

Description:

Four-wing saltbush is a 3 ft., semi-evergreen shrub which can reach 8 ft. Summer flowers are insignificant, but the clusters of gold-tan, four-winged fruits, which occur on female plants only, are showy. The branches and small, narrow leaves of this mound-shaped shrub are covered with a dense, silvery pubescence. Extremely variable shrub: compact and rounded; sprawling and low; to open-branched and treelike. It has many branches; some twigs are spiny. The young stems and leaves are covered with minute white scales called scurf, which helps protect the plant against water loss. Long linear-shaped leaves are three eighths to one and one half inches long, grow either singly or in small clusters from alternate nodes, and are covered with small scales. These plants are dioecious—the Latin word for "two homes." Male and female flowers are found on separate plants (mostly). The tiny yellow male flowers grow in tiny globular clusters called glomerules. Five sepals are fused into a small cup, from which the five stamens arise. Female flowers grow in open, elongated clusters two to sixteen inches long, arising from the sides of the stem. The seeds, called utricles, have four large, membranous fringed wings that arise at right angles to the seed. The flowers bloom from mid-spring to mid-summer. Some years, plants may be cloaked with seeds.

Habitat:

Brushy area along shoulder of road in Santa Catalina Mts.

Notes:

Native Americans of the Southwest harvested the leaves and seeds of the plant for food. Seeds were cooked like oatmeal, and the leaves were either eaten raw or cooked. Sometimes the ashes of the plant were used as a leavening ingredient for breads or were used in making a lye to soften the hulls of corn. However the seeds were prepared, they represented a good source of niacin. The ground-up seeds were mixed with sugar and water for a drink called pinole. At Zuni, handfuls of the male blossoms were crushed and mixed with a little water to create a soap for washing or treating ant bites. This suggests that the plant contains saponins, soaplike compounds. Navajos made a yellow dye from an infusion of the twigs and leaves.