There's a special ecosystem in western North America that spreads across the wide plateaus and basins between the Cascades and Sierra Nevada ranges and the Rocky Mountains further east.

We're talking about the sagebrush step ecosystem, S-T-E-P-P-E.

It covers almost one-third of the lower 48 states in the U.S.

To many people, sagebrush landscapes embody the feel of the West,

open skies, rolling hills, and plains,

few trees, and the silvery gray expanse of shrubs stretching to a distant

horizon.

The climate here is hot and dry in the summer, bitterly cold and windy in the winter.

It's not an easy place to live.

And yet, there's a surprising amount of biodiversity in the sagebrush step.

The vegetation is a mix of wildflowers, grasses, and shrubs.

And not surprisingly, the dominant shrubs are the sagebrushes.

These plants belong to the genus Artemisia, A-R-T-E-M-I-S-I-A.

And they're in the plant family, Asteraceae, which you might know as the sunflower or Aster family.

There are about 500 species in the genus Artemisia worldwide, and these also include the plants we call wormwoods.

Western North America is home to dozens of Artemisia species.

One of the distinguishing features of these plants is the chemical compounds in their leaves

that give them a strong aroma and a bitter taste. These chemicals are defenses that the plant makes to repel

hungry herbivores, who would otherwise very much like to munch on the leaves. So these chemicals

are essentially poisonous. And yet, in the human world, we've used some Artemisia species in things we drink or eat.

Artemisia absintheinum provides an essential ingredient in the alcoholic drink absinthe.

Still poison, maybe, but a tasty, tasty poison, I guess.

...