Artemisia cana.
Lakota name: peji hota toto (gray or gray blue herb)
Listen to Lakota Plant Name: peji hota toto
Scientific name: Artemisia cana
Common names: Common names include silver sagebrush, plains silver sagebrush, hoary sagebrush, and white sagebrush.
Lakota use: It is listed only as a medicine.
Description: Young twigs are green, rigid and canescent while older twigs are brown to gray coloured and glabrous. The trunk bark is tan to grayish-brown. The leaves are alternate, simple, linear (2-9 cm long, 1-7 mm wide), and entire to 1-2 lobed with a canescent surface. The fruit is a cylindrical, light brown achene (2.5 mm long, 1 mm wide).
Distribution: Silver sagebrush grows in southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, through Montana, Wyoming, and northern Colorado into central North and South Dakota and northwestern Nebraska. Isolated populations grow in the eastern Dakotas.
Special management considerations: Silver sagebrush sprouts vigorously following disturbance. Stand densities on winter ranges can be manipulated when dense stands form with concentrated animal use. Forage can increase when silver sagebrush is reduced.
