Flora of North America species comparison

Variety polifolium is a widespread, common to abundant, or occasionally dominant shrub of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in Arizona, southern California, southern Nevada, and southwestern Utah. This is the common tetraploid expression of the species. It is occasionally planted as an ornamental in the more arid regions of the American Southwest.

Plants were used by several groups of Native Americans as a medicinal plant to treat a variety of symptoms (D. E. Moerman 1986). It was used also in the practice of witchcraft by the Navajo, in a potion against evil spells.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)

Variety flavoviride is a widespread, infrequent to common, warm-desert shrub found on the Mojave and Sonoran deserts in southern San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties. The yellowish-green hue of the flowering stems, inflorescence branches, and leaves readily distinguish it from var. polifolium, with which it occasionally occurs (especially in Mexico), although this feature is not always obvious on herbarium specimens. Variety flavoviride is much more attractive in the garden than its more frequently planted Mojave Desert counterpart. Reports (e.g., R. S. Felger 2000) of var. fasciculatum along the coast in extreme northwestern Sonora are based on specimens of var. flavoviride.

(Discussion copyrighted by Flora of North America; reprinted with permission.)