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Turpentine Bush, Ericameria laricifolia, Inyo, California

773 views · Published 22 October 2012 · 1:26 · Indexed 18 October 2026

Channel: Melvin Wei · 2012 · Science & Technology

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It took a trip to a botanical garden to identify this shrub at 3,000 meters above sea level in Mount Whitney Portal of Inyo County, California in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The growing season is short here as the sunlight is mostly blocked by the Sierra Nevada Mountains to the west in the afternoons and there isn't much of a summer here up this high. Temperatures are likely cold year-round. I was actually expecting nothing but pine trees this high up with all the snow, but this and other scrub species were present.

Turpentine bush, also known as turpentine brush, or Ericameria laricifolia scientifically, is a perennial shrub that grows in the desert or highlands. It grows up to a meter tall, and the juices within the leaves smell like turpentine, giving it the name of turpentine bush. It has bright yellow flowers in the summer and early fall, and attracts many pollinators, including butterflies. In fact, you can see a beautiful painted lady butterfly resting on this plant's seeds in the middle of the video (see my painted lady video for more information on that species).

The significance of this footage is that I found turpentine bushes growing at such a high elevation, when multiple official sources online describe it as growing from 1,000 to 2,000 meters above sea level. It is native to Inyo and San Bernardino Counties in California. Every photo and video I have seen of turpentine bush online confirms that this is the species we are looking at: the appearance of the bush, the foliage, and the seeds. It looked exactly the same in a botanical garden sighting I took a photograph of.

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