General medication.
TRICHOSTEMA LANATUM
(Ind. Zu-bal)
American Wild Rosemary. This shrub, when in full bloom in the months of May to July, emits a sweet, balsamic fragrance, and is of great medicinal value for many ailments.
The Indians who made use of this plant a great deal had no difficulty in tracing it through its scent to its place of growth, where the flowering stocks were carefully gathered so that the root and crown system suffered no injury. Extra precaution was taken for the next annual blooming season, for most of the plants were of a delicate nature. As far back as I can remember, in the late ’90s, the Trichostema lanatum grew in abundance along the near coastal ranges, but gradually this very valuable plant became a victim of extermination through brush fires at the hands of careless hunters and the clearing of land by farmers. The Indians, perceiving how rapidly these plants were vanishing, gathered the seeds and carried them further inland, into rough mountain country where they were resown, and there they remained in their last botanical refuge with hundreds of others which are of great medicinal value also.
Furthermore, from such localities Indian hunters would gather the seeds and carry them still further into the mountains for safety and for purposes of propagation. Today it is solely due to the Indian’s foresight that Trichostema lanatum is found plentifully in the Pe-we-pe mountains, better known today as the San Gorgania mountains. It is also found in Riverside County and the San Jacinto mountains, on southward over high mountaintops in lower California, Mexico, and northward to San Rafael but rarely beyond that point.