By no means limited to the deserts, fleabane is common throughout the Southwest, including parts of Mexico. In some localities it is known as “wild-daisy.” Six to 15 inches tall, with attractive circular flowers, fleabane often forms noticeable patches along road shoulders and on dry open slopes, blossoming from February to October. Flowers may be an inch in diameter in springtime, but those in summer are usually smaller. The name arises from an ancient belief that the odor of some species repelled fleas.
Locally called “desert-broom,” or “Mexican broom,” this species of baccharis is an erect, coarse, evergreen shrub 3 to 6 feet high, frequently encountered on hillsides and bottomlands at elevations between 1,000 and 5,500 feet from southwestern New Mexico to southern and Baja California and northern Mexico. Greening up following summer rains, the shrubs blossom from September to February. Flowers are inconspicuous, but the fruits develop as masses of spectacular cottony threads, giving the shrubs a snow-covered appearance. Among some Indian tribes the twigs are chewed to relieve toothache. In Mexico the shrub is called _hierba del pasmo_.
_Baccharis sarothroides_ Sunflower Family
From 3 inches to a foot high, desert zinnia is a dwarf shrub with small, stiff, dull green leaves and attractive, four-petaled flowers that are present from April to October. Preferring clayey or rocky, arid soils at elevations 2,500 to 5,000 feet, this species is found from west Texas to southern Arizona and Mexico. Although related to the garden zinnia, which is a native of Mexico, only the large flowered desert species, _Zinnia grandiflora_, is considered worthy of cultivation.
Sometimes blossoming as early as November and often lingering until May, brittle-bush is a dome-shaped, winter-flowering bush that brings delight to desert dwellers in Nevada, Arizona, southern California, and northwestern Mexico. Stems of the low-growing, silvery-leaved shrub exude a gum which was chewed by desert Indians and burned as incense by priests in mission churches, giving the plant the local name, _incienso_. Strictly a desert shrub, about 3 feet high, brittle-bush prefers rocky hillsides below 3,000 feet. Growing in masses it often covers entire slopes with a mass of golden bloom, contributing to the early spring flower display. Bighorn sheep are reported to rely on this species for browse.