Sometimes the leaves curl under to retain moisture. Chaparral plants are usually evergreen because it is advantageous not to have to produce a whole crop of new leaves at the beginning of the short growing season. Instead, when the rains come, the plant can use its energy for reproduction. Some speceis are drought deciduous, dropping most of their leaves during prolonged dry periods. Others allow entire branches to die.
Chaparral branches are rigid, an adaptation which prevents damage due to wilting.
The structure of the branches channels water to the base of the plant, where it is most readily absorbed. The root system, extensive in proportion to the base of the plant, can be shallow and widespreading to capture surface water, and deep to capture ground water. Roots of different species penetrate to different depths, thus reducing direct competition. Some plants, yerba santa, for example, send out long underground stems, which sprout new plants in neighboring areas where the competition for water would be too great for a seedling to survive. Proof that the young plants are not seedlings has been demostrated by placing radioactive compounds on the parent plant and monitoring radioactivity soon afterwards in the distant young sprouts.