Common names: BUFFALO-GOURD, COYOTE-MELON, (_CALABAZILLA_), (_CHILI COYOTE_) Arizona desert: (_Cucurbita digitata_). Yellow. June-October. California desert: (_Cucurbita palmata_). Yellow. July-September. Texas desert: (_Cucurbita foetidissima_). Yellow. May-August. Gourd family. Size: Trailing perennial with stems 4 to 15 feet long.
Gourds are conspicuous, trailing, rank-growing plants common along roadsides and in the open desert. Leaves are grayish-green, and blossoms yellow and trumpet-shaped. The striped fruits are about the size and shape of a tennis ball, although some are egg-shaped.
The fruits which are very conspicuous after the vines and leaves have been winter-killed, are sometimes collected, painted in gay colors, and used as ornaments about the house.
Although Indians considered the fruits as inferior and suitable only for coyotes, they ate them either cooked or dried, and made the seeds into a mush. Pioneers used the crushed roots of these plants as a cleansing agent in washing clothes.
Common names: FIDDLENECK Arizona desert: (_Amsinckia intermedia_). Yellow. Spring. California desert: (_Amsinckia tessellata_). Yellow. Spring. Borage family. Size: Bristly erect herbs, 8 to 18 inches.
An annual of the Creosotebush belt, and very abundant on gravelly or sandy soils in dry, open places, Fiddleneck is found from western New Mexico to California and north to eastern Washington.
_A. tessellata_ occurs also in Chile and Argentina. Plants are reported to make good spring forage where they grow in heavy stands, but indications have been found that cirrhosis of the liver may result in cattle, sheep and horses that eat the nutlets.
Following moist winters, Fiddleneck is often so abundant as to form vast fields of yellow or orange-yellow blossoms, especially on the Mohave Desert in southern California.
The curling habit of the opening flower heads somewhat resembles the neck of a violin, hence the name.
Common names: TARBUSH, VARNISHBUSH Arizona and Texas deserts: (_Flourensia cernua_). Yellow. July-December. Sunflower family. Size: A small shrub 3 feet, occasionally 6 or 7 feet high.
These resinous, much-branched, perennial shrubs are found on plains and mesas at elevations around 4,000 feet from western Texas to eastern Arizona and south into Mexico. The yellow, nodding flower heads are small, and the leaves have a hop-like odor and a bitter flavor unpalatable to cattle.