Common Name: jojoba
Duration: Perennial
Nativity: Native
Lifeform: Shrub
General: Intricately branched shrub with rigid knotty branches 1-5 m tall, finely puberulent branchlets and peduncles.
Leaves: Opposite, entire, ovate to oblong-elliptic, 1-2 cm broad, 2-5 cm long, acute to obtuse at both ends, dull green, leathery, somewhat glaucous or canescent, sparsely puberulent or glabrate with age.
Flowers: Dioecious; sepals of staminate flowers oblanceolate or oblong 3-4 mm long, densely puberulent without, stamens 3-4 mm long, filament about 1 mm long or less, in capitate axillary clusters on peduncles 2-6 mm long; sepals of solitary pistillate flowers connate at base to form cup 1.5-3 mm deep, broadly lanceolate, 8-10 mm long at anthesis, to 15 cm long in fruit.
Fruits: Capsule oblong ovoid, 15-20 mm long bearing a single seed.
Ecology: Found on dry hillslopes, outwash slopes and along arroyos in gravelly or rocky soils from 1,500-5,000 ft (457-1524 m); flowers February-May.
Distribution: s AZ, s CA; Sonora and Baja Calif., MEX.
Notes: Opposite, entire, leathery leaves and large single seeded capsule are distinctive. Often forms dense thickets.
Ethnobotany: Used for sores, as a cathartic, as a coffee like beverage, the nuts were made into cakes, eaten fresh, and made into a nut butter.
Etymology: Simmondsia is named for Thomas Simmonds (1767-1804), an English botanist, while chinensis means of or referring to China.
Synonyms: Buxus chinensis, Simmondsia californica
Editor: SBuckley, 2010
