Jojoba

Jojoba is an evergreen, dioecious shrub native to the Sonoran Desert, the Colorado Desert, Baja California and California chaparral, the sole species of its family. Wikipedia says its seed yields jojoba oil, a liquid wax ester highly valued in cosmetics, that the name comes from hohohwi in the O'odham language, and that seed meal in large quantities is toxic to many mammals because of simmondsin. Kynes describes a multi-trunked shrub about eight feet tall with leathery grey-green leaves and one to three seeds in each oval fruit. She notes that the Tohono O'odham used the seeds for food and the oil for cooking and medicine, that the Coahuiltecan made a drink from the seeds, and that the oil became an alternative to sperm whale oil. She warns that jojoba is unsafe to ingest. For magic she prepares a candle with the oil to attract love or heighten romance, and puts small bowls of seeds around the home to bring a relationship or any other part of life back into balance.