Creosote bush
The scraggly desert shrub whose leaves make the smell of desert rain, and whose slow-spreading clone rings are among the oldest living things on Earth.
Creosote bush at a glance
Larrea tridentata KREE-uh-soht bush; Larrea tridentata is LAR-ee-uh try-den-TAH-tuh
- Type
- Plant · shrub
- Diet
- Producer
- Size
- A loose, open shrub usually about as tall as a person, up to roughly 10 feet.
- Lifespan
- A single stem lives about 100 to 200 years, but a plant clones itself outward for thousands of years.
- Conservation
- Not formally assessed by IUCN; abundant across North American deserts
A green shrub that makes its own food from sunlight through small, waxy, resin-coated leaves that hold in water, letting it live through long droughts on very little rain.
Is it safe to touch?
Safe to be near and to smell, but do not eat it. Its leaves are coated in a bitter resin that keeps most animals from browsing it. Cup a leaf, breathe in the rain smell, and leave the plant to its long, slow life.
Rain has a smell in the desert at Joshua Tree, and it comes from a scraggly, easy-to-miss bush most people walk past without a glance. The creosote bush is an open tangle of small dark-green leaves and thin branches standing about head high. But when the air turns humid before a storm, those leaves release a clean, sharp scent that carries for a distance, and it is the exact smell most people mean when they talk about the smell of desert rain. Cup a few leaves in your hands, breathe on them, and you can call up a rainstorm out of a dry afternoon.
What that modest bush is hiding is time. A single creosote stem lives only a century or two, but the plant as a whole does not die when the stem does. As the oldest center wears out, the outer stems keep sprouting and spreading in a slowly widening circle of clones, all one living thing, creeping outward a little each century. One such ring in the Mojave, named King Clone, has been measured spreading so slowly that scientists estimate it at around 11,700 years old, already thousands of years old by the time the pyramids went up in Egypt.
Look across a creosote flat and you notice the bushes stand oddly evenly apart, as if someone planted them on a grid. They did it themselves. A creosote’s roots leak chemicals into the soil that keep other plants, even baby creosotes, from taking root too close, so each bush holds its own patch of scarce desert water at arm’s length from its neighbors. Give it a sniff, and give it room.
Did you know?
- The clean, sharp smell people call the smell of desert rain comes mostly from creosote. Its resin-coated leaves release the scent when the air turns humid before a storm.
- As it grows, the oldest center of a creosote dies while the outer stems keep spreading, forming a slowly widening ring of clones. One ring in the Mojave, called King Clone, is estimated at around 11,700 years old.
- It spaces itself out. Creosote roots release chemicals that discourage other plants, and even other creosotes, from sprouting too close, so the bushes stand evenly apart across the desert.
Common questions
What makes the smell of desert rain?
Mostly creosote bush. Its leaves are coated in resin, and when the air grows humid before a desert storm, that resin releases the clean, sharp scent people call the smell of rain.
How old can a creosote bush get?
A single stem lives one or two centuries, but the plant clones itself outward in a slowly widening ring. One ring in the Mojave, King Clone, is estimated at about 11,700 years old, among the oldest living things on Earth.
Why are creosote bushes spaced so evenly apart?
Their roots release chemicals that keep other plants, even young creosotes, from sprouting nearby. That competition for scarce water spreads the bushes out in an even pattern across the desert.