BAILEYA multiradiata Desert Marigold

The long-lived, bright-yellow flowers rise on nearly leafless stems above the banks of woolly, gray foliage. This grayish, woolly plant has branched leaf mostly in the lower half of the plant.  There are vivid yellow flowers at heads of bunches. The flowers, which occur periodically in a long bloom period, turn dry and thin with age.

Beds of these flowers give the look of solid strips of yellow, along miles of desert roadsides. In gardens and prairies, a single plant raises into a perfect hemisphere of yellow spreading sheet, blooming throughout the hot summer and into fall.