Sunshine, Gold Fields
Baéria grácilis
Yellow
Southwest
This is a dear little plant, often covering the fields with a carpet of gold. The slender stems are about six inches tall, with soft, downy, light green leaves, usually opposite, and pretty fragrant flowers, about three-quarters of an inch across, with bright yellow rays and darker yellow centers. This is sometimes called Fly Flower, because in some places it is frequented by a small fly, which is annoying to horses. B. macrántha is a much larger plant, a biennial, with a tuberous root, from seven inches to a foot and a half tall, with long, narrow, toothless leaves, with hairy margins, and flower-heads from an inch to an inch and a half across, with yellow rays and hairy involucres. This grows along the coast in California, blooming in May and June.
Venegasia—V. carpesioides.
Sunshine—Baeria gracilis.
Lessingia—L. leptoclada.
There are several kinds of Bahia, natives of western North America, Mexico, and Chile, herbs or shrubs, more or less woolly.
Bahia
Bàhia absinthifòlia
Yellow
Spring
Arizona
This is from eight to fifteen inches tall, with pretty flowers, an inch and a half across, with bright yellow rays and deep yellow centers, contrasting well with the pale gray-green foliage, which is covered with close white down. This grows in arid situations on the mesas and often forms clumps.
There are several kinds of Crassina, natives of the United States and Mexico.
Desert Zinnia
Crassìna pùmila (Zinnia)
White
Spring
Arizona
Nothing could look much less like a garden Zinnia than this dry, prickly-looking dwarf shrub. It is from three inches to a foot high, the branches crowded with very small, stiff, dull green leaves, and the flowers are about an inch across, rather pretty but not conspicuous, with a yellow center and four or five, broad, cream-white rays, often tinged with dull pink. This plant grows on the plains and is a "soil-indicator," as it flourishes on the poorest, stoniest, and most arid land.