Mormon Tea

Mormon Tea is a shrubby, jointed stemmed gymnosperm native to arid regions of the western United States, including the Great Basin, the Colorado Plateau and parts of California, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah. It has slender, green, photosynthetic stems and greatly reduced, scale like leaves, an adaptation to conserve water in the dry desert and scrubland habitats where it grows. The common name refers to the historical use of its stems, steeped in hot water, as a caffeine free herbal beverage by Mormon settlers and other communities in the American West, continuing traditions of use by Indigenous peoples of the region. Unlike many of its Old World relatives in the same genus, this species contains little or none of the alkaloid ephedrine that gives some of those species their stimulant and medicinal properties.