These were gathered wild in the Mojave desert in 2023 The desert-marigold is an annual or short-lived perennial, generally 10 to 30 inches tall with a basal rosette of one- to four-inch long, pinnate wooly, or hairy, leaves. Hairs are an important desert plant adaptation because they both increase light reflection, resulting in lower leaf temperatures, and they block ultraviolet light. Single, one- to two-inch wide flower heads grow on the end of stems up to one foot above the leaves. The plant ranges across southern Arizona north into southern Nevada and southwestern Utah, south into Mexico, west to the Mojave Desert and east through the Chihuahua Desert to Texas. Habitats: Desert-marigolds are one of the most conspicuous spring wildflowers across the arid lands of the southwest. They begin to flower in March and will continue to bloom off and on until November. Rain triggers additional rounds of flowering. They commonly grow on stony slopes and sandy plains and mesas and are most abundant on roadsides, where they may form dense yellow carpets. They range in elevation from 100 to 6500 feet. Their drought tolerance and long flowering season have made the desert-marigold a popular plant in the horticultural world. Researchers at ASU have extracted several desert-marigold compounds, which might help in cancer therapy by inhibiting tumor formation.