CHAMISAL. CHAMISO. GREASEWOOD.
Adenostoma fasciculatum, Hook. and Arn. Rose Family.
Shrubs two to twenty feet high, with gray, shreddy bark and reddish, slender branches. Leaves.—Two to four lines long; linear to awl-shaped; smooth; clustered. Stipules small; acute. Flowers.—White; two lines across; in terminal racemose panicles. Calyx.—Five-toothed; with bracts below resembling another calyx; tube ten-ribbed. Petals.—Five. Stamens.—Ten to fifteen; in clusters between the petals. Ovary.—One-celled. Fruit.—A dry akene. Hab.—Widely distributed.
The chamisal forms a large part of the chaparral of our mountain slopes, and when not in bloom gives to them much the aspect imparted to the Scotch Highlands by the heather. It is an evergreen shrub, with small clustered, needle-like leaves. In late spring it is covered with large, feathery panicles of tiny white blossoms, which show with particular effectiveness against the rich olive of its foliage, and furnish the bees with valuable honey material for a considerable season. When interspersed with shrubs of livelier greens, it gives to our hill-slopes and mountain-sides a wonderfully rich and varied character. In the summer of a season when it has flowered freely, the cinnamon-colored seed-vessels blending with the olives of the foliage lend a rich, warm bronze to whole hillsides, forming a charming contrast to the straw tints and russets of grassy slopes, and adding another to the many soft harmonies of our summer landscape. It is most abundant in the Coast Ranges, where, in some localities, it covers mile after mile of hill-slopes, with its close-cropped, uniform growth.
When the chaparral, or dense shrubby growth of our mountain-sides, is composed entirely of Adenostoma, it is called chamisal.
Another species, A. sparsifolium, Torr., found in the south, and somewhat resembling the above, may be known from it by its lack of stipules, its scattered, not clustered leaves, which are obtuse and not pointed, and its somewhat larger flowers, each one pediceled.
This is commonly known among the Spanish-Californians as "Yerba del Pasmo," literally the "herb of the convulsion," and among them and the Indians it is a sovereign remedy for many ailments, being considered excellent for colds, cramps, and snakebites, and an infallible cure for tetanus, or lockjaw. The foliage fried in grease becomes a healing ointment.
The bark of this species is reddish and hangs in shreds.