Prairie sage
Artemisia ludoviciana
Also called White sage, Silver wormwood, Man sage
- Cree
- mos-tos-wi-kahs-kwah
Know another name for this plant, or a different spelling? Tell us.
The silver-grey aromatic sage of the open prairie, and the plant most people mean when they say sage here. Cut, tied and dried for smudging, and laid down in ceremony.
Commonly shared knowledge. Learn it, gather it, and follow the protocol.
Take care
- Do not confuse the sages of the prairie with culinary garden sage or with the white sage sold in shops, which is a different plant from the American southwest.
What it is confused with
Harmful look-alikeAbsinthe wormwood Artemisia absinthium
An introduced weed of roadsides and yards. It grows coarser and bushier, the leaves are deeply divided and greyer on the underside than the top, and the smell is sharply medicinal rather than clean. Avoid it.
Easily confusedPasture sage Artemisia frigida
Pasture sage is much shorter, forms low silvery cushions, and its leaves are finely divided like threads. It is also used, but it is a different plant. Prairie sage is taller with narrow undivided leaves.
How to know it
- Leaves
- Narrow, soft, silver-grey and woolly on both sides. Toothed or lobed near the base of the plant, plainer higher up.
- Height
- Knee high to waist high, growing in patches from spreading roots rather than as single plants.
- Smell
- Strong, clean and bitter when you rub a leaf. This is the surest test.
- Flowers
- Small, dull and greenish in a narrow spike up the stem. Easy to miss, and not what you are after.
- In winter
- Grey stalks stand through the snow and still smell like sage when broken.
The country it grows in
- Open prairie
- Coulee slopes
- Roadsides and disturbed ground
- Sandy and gravelly ground
Landscape types only. We do not publish where a patch is, and we are not going to.
When it is ready
- Whole plant June to AugustCut the upper stems before or as it flowers, while the leaves are full.
- Leaves June to September
Right now it is July. Something on this plant is in season.
What it is used for
- Smudge and ceremony
- Teaching with youth
Cut stems are bundled, tied and hung upside down in a dry shaded place until they snap rather than bend.
Widely documented in Blackfoot practice as a smudge and as a plant laid down in ceremony.
How it is prepared
- Dried and stored
Tie in small bundles and hang out of direct sun. Store dry, off the ground, away from damp.
- Smudge
A small amount of dried leaf is lit and then blown out so it smoulders.
Smoke is smoke. Take care around asthma, small children and smoke alarms.
Protocol
Ask the plant first, and offer something before you take anything. Tobacco is what is most often offered here. Say who you are, and say what the medicine is for.
Harvest the mature plants and leave the small ones to grow. Never take the first plant you find, and never take all of them.
Take only what you will actually use. Medicine picked and then left to rot in a bag was taken for nothing.
Leave the ground as you found it. Put back any dirt you dug up, and return any plant material you do not use to the earth.
Do not gather beside roads, highways or trails, where the plants take up whatever has been sprayed or spilled there.
If you are not certain what a plant is, do not pick it and do not put it in your mouth. Ask someone. Being wrong in the field is how people get hurt.
Sage is common, which makes it easy to be careless with. Cut the tops with a knife rather than pulling up roots, so the patch comes back next year.