Green stems with dry flowerheads |
General: Desert Baccharis (Baccharis sergiloides) is an upright, many-stemmed shrub (broom-like) with green, angular stems such that the shrubs appear as green stems with dry flowerheads at the stem tips. Lower and mid-level leaves are fairly long (to 50 mm) and wide (5–15 mm), and they are notched or lobed towards the tip, but they drop by the time the flowers bloom (deciduous at flowering).
Desert Baccharis is a member of the sunflower family, but the flowers have no "petals," that is, only disk flowers are present. Flowerheads are clustered on stem tips, and individual flowers are tiny.
Desert Baccharis is a fairly common component of vegetation communities in canyons, washes, along streams, and other moist places in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub) life zones.
Family: Sunflower (Asteraceae) |