Pluchea sericea

Pluchea sericea, commonly called arrowweed or cachanilla (Mexico), is a rhizomatous evergreen shrub of riparian areas in the lower Sonoran Desert and surrounding areas. It is common in the lower Colorado River valley of California, Nevada and Arizona, as far east as Texas, and in northern Mexico where it often forms dense impenetrable thickets. It is a perennial shrub and grows along watercourses.[1]

Pluchea sericea
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Clade: Tracheophytes
Clade: Angiosperms
Clade: Eudicots
Clade: Asterids
Order: Asterales
Family: Asteraceae
Genus: Pluchea
Species:
P. sericea
Binomial name
Pluchea sericea

Uses

It was once used medicinally by Native Americans as an antidiarrheal and eyewash. Other traditional uses include thatching, arrowmaking and food, especially the edible root.[2]

In other uses, the gum resin that exudes from the plant was used by the Papago Indians to make a mending glue on broken pottery.[3]

References
  1. "Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - The University of Texas at Austin". www.wildflower.org. Retrieved 2022-05-18.
  2. "BRIT - Native American Ethnobotany Database". naeb.brit.org.
  3. Fontana, Bernard L.; Robinson, William J.; Cormack, Charles W.; Leavitt, Earnest E. (1962). Papago Indian Pottery. Seattle, Washington: University of Washington Press, on behalf of the American Ethnological Society. p. 81. OCLC 869680.

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