Salvia columbariae Benth.
Chia
Chia is native to the southwestern United States and arid parts of Mexico. It is common in dry open disturbed soils, usually at elevations below 4000′ (1.2 km), sometimes as high as 1.3 mi (2.1 km).
Plants: Stems are four-sided, with sparse short hairs.
Leaves: Oblong to ovate, ¾–4″ (2–10 cm) long, most of them arranged in a basal rosette. Each leaf is deeply divided into fernlike bipinnate portions, wrinkly, velvety, and gray-green in color.
Flowers: Flower stalks rise from the base and are 4–20″ (10–50 cm) in height. Flowerheads are spiky purple balls with many small blue (rarely white) flowers, though only a few flowers are in bloom at any given time. Each flower has an upper lip with two or three awns and a white center, and a lower lip twice as large. Flowers appear from March to June.
Fruits: The purple spiky balls persist, becoming tan or gray nutlets, each 1/32–1/16″ (1.5–2 mm) long.
Habitats: Coastal sage scrublands, chaparral, and creosote bush scrub.
Edibility: The Cahuilla, Kawaiisu, Mohave, Tohono O’odham, Chumash and Akimel O’odham ground the seeds and mixed them into water to make a thick beverage. The Cahuillas removed the alkali salts in the water, improving the flavor. They also dried the seeds to make cakes or mush. The Ohlones, Mohave, and Pomo make pinole, roasted ground maize, which is then mixed with a combination of cocoa, agave, cinnamon, chia seeds, vanilla, or other spices. The Diegueno added the seeds to wheat to improve flavor. The Mahuna, Paiute, and Akimel O’odham made it into a gelatinous material, then cooked it into porridge. The Luiseno, Tubatulabal, and Yavapai used it extensively as a food source. (From the Native American Ethnobotany Database.) See also this article, which describes further uses of this species as a staple food.
Medical: This plant has been used for several folk remedies, though these have not been studied closely.
Online References:
4/30/2018 · Black Canyon Road, Mojave National Preserve, California · ≈ 6 × 8″ (14 × 20 cm) 
4/30/2018 · Black Canyon Road, Mojave National Preserve, California · ≈ 7 × 6″ (17 × 16 cm) 
4/30/2018 · Black Canyon Road, Mojave National Preserve, California · ≈ 5 × 8″ (13 × 20 cm) 
5/2/2018 · Bajada Trail, Joshua Tree National Park, California · ≈ 5 × 8″ (13 × 20 cm) 
5/2/2018 · Bajada Trail, Joshua Tree National Park, California · ≈ 5 × 8″ (13 × 20 cm) 
4/30/2018 · Black Canyon Road, Mojave National Preserve, California · ≈ 5 × 6″ (13 × 15 cm) 
4/30/2018 · Black Canyon Road, Mojave National Preserve, California · ≈ 8 × 6″ (19 × 16 cm) 
| Kingdom | Plantae | Plants, but not fungi, lichens, or algae (from Stearn's Botanical Latin) |
| Subkingdom | Tracheobionta | Vascular plants—plants with a “circulatory system” for delivering water and nutrients |
| Division | Magnoliophyta | Flowering plants, also known as angiosperms |
| Class | Magnoliopsida | Dicotyledons—plants with two initial seed leaves |
| Subclass | Asteridae | A large class that encompasses asters |
| Order | Lamiales | Aromatic herbs and shrubs, including lavender, lilac, olive, jasmine, ash, teak, snapdragon, sesame, psyllium, garden sage, mint, basil, and rosemary |
| Family | Lamiaceae | Mint family |
| Genus | Salvia | From the Latin salveo, “I am well,” referring to the medicinal properties of some members of this genus |
| Species | columbariae | One reference states that this plant reminded its namer, George Bentham, of Scabiosa columbaria, and possibly derives from Latin columbarius meaning “of or pertaining to doves or appearing dove-like.” It’s interesting that despite the fact that there are at least eight past or present taxa which use ‘columbaria’ as a species name, there is so little information about what it means |
Salvia columbariae description by Thomas H. Kent, not updated.
© FloraFinder.org. All rights reserved.