This species is common in areas of sandy soil below 1,500 feet in elevation from Utah and southeastern Colorado to southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. It is one of the showy roadside flowers of Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument.
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Encelia farinosa
Common names: BRITTLEBUSH, (INCIENSO) Arizona and California deserts: (Encelia farinosa). Yellow. November-May. Sunflower family. Size: Perennial shrubs, 2 to 3 feet high.
These low, branching shrubs with gray-green leaves are common on rocky slopes and benches where they lighten the winter landscape with their bright flower heads and create a spectacular mass of bloom during early spring. Flower stems rise several inches above the brittle leaf-covered branches, thus hiding the plant under a blanket of blossoms at the height of the blooming period.
Plants are abundant on rocky slopes below 3,000 feet from southern Nevada to Lower California and eastward through Arizona.
Stems exude a gum prized as incense by the early-day Catholic priests. Indians chewed this gum, and also heated it to smear on their bodies for the relief of pain.
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