Otay Mesa

Desert Rose: rose hips source of vitamin C, jam or tea

Dudleya: Leaves cooked, peeled, or pierced on one side and bound over corns or calluses to remove them.

Red Fescue, Needle Grass: Native Americans collected seeds, ground them and made flour and gruel. Native Americans burned the grasslands to stimulate seed production. They only harvested what they needed and left the rest to sustain the grasses, which once covered most of the coastal plain.

San Diego Mountain Mahogany: Indians used wood for fish spears, arrow shafts, and pointed digging sticks; inner bark used for a purple dye, bark used for a tea to treat colds, stripped, dried and boiled bark as a cure for lung diseases; powdered young plant stirred in water was used as a laxative. Spanish Americans hung a branch on their beds to discourage bedbugs

San Diego Bur Sage: forage for animals Species of special concern. Only found in San Diego and Mexico

Small Leafed Milkweed: Asklepios was Greek god of medicine. Plant is said to have medicinal value. The Monarch Butterfly lays its eggs on species of this plant.

Summer Holly: Native Americans ate berries.

White Yarrow: Spanish used leaves steeped in hot water for cuts and bruises. Fresh branches used to staunch blood. contains alkaloids and glycosides which can make sheep sick if they eat a lot of it