After bloom, the plant dies back leaving inconspicuous barren stems and brown leaves. As the purple and white pea-like flower dries and disintegrates, the calyx enlarges to become a papery sack about a half an inch in length, sometimes tinged pink. As a water conservation adaptation this shrubby member of the mint family has very small leaves and loses most of them during the drought of the summer. At the DTNA, most annual wildflowers germinate after the winter rains and bloom during the spring months providing food for tortoises and other wildlife when they emerge from hibernation. Here a desert tortoise can be seen wandering through a sea of goldfields, Lasthenia californica .
Tortoises eat dried annual plants and grasses from late spring through early fall.
This is split grass, Stipa speciosa . Dry forage forms most of the tortoises' diet when live plants are no longer available. They eat the dried stems, leaves, flowers, and fruits of plants such as split grass, blazing star, gilias, desert dandelion, filaree and many other species. Lichens A lichen is two different organisms, an alga and a fungus, living together as a single unit in a symbiotic relationship. The alga provides food through photosynthesis and the fungus forms a support matrix and supplies the necessary water.