The desert, or Mormon, tea, a gray or pale green, jointed shrub with minute, scale like leaves, has been used trustingly by both prospectors and Indians as a health drink. Flowers in Death Valley, like desert blooms elsewhere, have a delicately of form and purity of color that make hothouse blooms appear vulgarly lush. In a normally dry year, with an inch to an inch and a half of rain, the annuals are scarce and tiny, from two to six inches tall. But they mature and sow their seeds, and in a wet year, when from two to four inches of rain fall, they bloom in sheets, growing from eight to eighteen inches tall. There are nine varieties of pretty evening primroses.
Sand verbena is a sticky, trailing plant with clusters of small, fragrant, pinkish lavender flowers.
The tiny desert gold poppy is a miniature edition of the California poppy. A still smaller one, with petals sometimes only one-eighth of an inch long, is a delight to the finder. Curlybloom, or desert heliotrope, grows blue, violet, purple, lavender, and white. Desert ghost is a tall white daisy, borne by gray stems that show faintly against the gravel, and the charming desert star is a low-growing white daisy. Whispering bells is a yellow flower that clings to the stem when dry and rustles in the wind.