One of the early spring flowers, sand-verbena creates spectacular mass
displays, sometimes alone, usually intermingling with other colorful
early bloomers such as bladderpod and sundrops, which grow on road
shoulders and sandy flats. The flowers are delicately fragrant,
especially at night. Semi-prostrate in habit, sand-verbena leaves are
covered with a dense growth of short, soft hairs which retard the loss
of moisture so essential to desert plants. This annual is common from
southern California and southern Arizona into Sonora.
_Abronia villosa_ Four o’clock Family
[Illustration: SAND-VERBENA]