Datura  ( ) (Toloache) Solanaceae (Datura meteloides) A perennial datura, this widespread jimsonweed has fragrant white trumpet flowers with a purple or lavender flush in the throat. Its nodding, apple-shaped capsules are spiny and open irregularly to drop their buff seeds. Daturas, which are visited by both hawk-moths and honeybees, have a long but irregular blooming season. This species is a deep-rooted drought tolerator that flowers after any substantial rain between April and November. A diminutive annual relative, Datura discolor , has a shorter blooming period and smaller range but is just as attractive. Both are poisonous.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988"

   Verbesina encelioides  ( ) ( ) Asteraceae This long season annual has triangular, toothed leaves that are grayish-green in color and fetid in odor. Cronwbeard's ray flowers are a gorgeous yellow-orange, each three-notched at its end. The disk flowers are yellow, and are followed by flattened seeds covered with fine, gray-brown hairs, hence the name crownbeard. This plant colonizes disturbed roadsides and abandoned fields, from deserts clear into pines. One set of these plants germinates early, to flower between March and July. Another, large crop, germinates with the late summer rains and flowers between July through December.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988"

  Rafinesquia neomexicana  (desert chicory) ( ) Asteraceae A white-flowered spring bloomer, this annual shares a few superficial features with the blue-flowered perennial chicory introduced from Europe and now widespread throughout much of America. Desert chicory is short but profusely branching and has deeply divided, arrow-shaped leaves. In wet winters, it becomes abundant upon plains, gentle bajadas, and mesas, from 200 feet in the desert, to its grassland edge above 3, 000 feet. In some dry years, it may fail altogether even when other herbs flower. Its bloom may stretch from March to May.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988."

  Lasthenia gracilis  (goldfields) ( ) Lasthenia chrysostoma Asteraceae This low-growing, tiny-flowered annual has linear, opposite leaves and forms small clumps or large carpets after good winter rains. Its small yellow, terminal heads seldom reach six inches in height. Found on mesas and plains from 1, 500 to 4, 500 feet in elevation, goldfields can carpet sandy flats for weeks. They bloom as early as February 20 and as late as mid-April but peak in the middle of March.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988"

  Allicelia latifolia  ( ) ( ) Gilia latifolia Polemoniaceae This pink-lavender, funnelform flower is one of many gilias within Arizona. It is an annual that is frequently visited by hummingbirds and butterflies. In wet springs, it appears in large stands on sandy soils in the Colorado and Gila river valleys, always blow 2, 000 feet. It may be found blooming anytime from mid-March to late April.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988."

  Echinocereus engelmannii  (atrawberry hedgehog) ( ) Cactaceae The reddish-purple or magenta flowers of hedgehogs rupture the skin of this cactus just above the areoles, the places where from two to six central spines cluster along the plant's ribs. The curved spines of this cactus are variable in color, from white or gold to black. Its cup-shaped flowers open for several consecutive days, attracting bees and beetles to their abundant pollen and nectar. Medium-sized bees alight on the stigma and probe into the masses of pollen below. As the bee collects one flower's pollen, it leaves behind other pollen, aiding cross-pollination. Hedgehog blooms often last only two weeks, beginning at the end of March or as late as mid-April. It grows on outwash fans, flats and, hillsides from sea level to 5,000 feet in grasslands.  "Arizona Highways Presents Desert Wildflowers, 1988".