USEFUL WILD PLANTS 



meal made from these seeds has been used, like that 

 from Chenopodium, in admixture with corn meal. 

 Similarly useful to desert Indians are the seeds of 

 species of Saltbush (Atriplex canescens, James, A. 

 lentiformis, Wats., A. Powellii, Wats., A. conferti- 

 folia, Wats., etc.). 



White Sage (Audibertia polystachya, Benth.), one 

 of the most famous of Pacific Coast honey plants, 

 produces slender, wandlike thyrses of pale blossoms 

 whose seeds, though small and husky, are exceed- 

 ingly numerous and rich in oil. They are still 

 gathered by Southern California Indians, who bend 

 the plants over a large basket and beat the seeds into 

 it by striking with a seed-beater, as described before 

 when treating of Chia. The seeds, mixed with wheat, 

 are parched in a frying pan, and all is reduced to a 

 fine meal by pounding in a mortar. This stirred in 

 water with a sprinkling of salt is then ready to be 

 eaten, or drunk, according as the mixture is thick or 

 thin. It, too, is called pinole. The sage seeds have 

 much the taste of Chia, the botanical relationship be- 

 ing close, but they are not mucilaginous. 



Several species of wild grasses are utilizable for 

 pinole. One of these is the Wild Oat (Avena fatua, 

 L.), suspected of being the progenitor of the culti- 

 vated oat, and abundant in certain parts of the West, 



54 



