Scientific Name: Bebbia juncea
Common Name: Sweetbush, Chuckwalla’s Delight
Family: Asteraceae, Sunflower Family
Duration: Perennial
Size: Up to 3 or 4 or so.
Growth Form: Shrub, subshrub; strongly scented; plants short-lived; intricately branched from thick woody root-crown; slender brittle branches; stems erect or spreading, plants mostly glabrous.
Leaves: Grayish-green; few leaves to leafless; lower leaves opposite; upper leaves alternate, sessile or petioled; linear or filiform; deciduous without rainfall; naked plants look reed-like; leaves sometimes gland-dotted.
Flower Color: Yellow or orange-yellow; discoid florets; solitary or in open rounded cyme-like clusters; slender peduncle; terminal flowers; phyllaries ovate to lance-linear, minutely villous; fruit an achene with a pappus of about 20 plumose bristle-like awns.
Flowering Season: April to July may flower throughout the year.
Comments: Sweetbush Bebbia is a scraggly looking aromatic desert shrub often ignored by casual observers and wildflower enthusiasts alike. However the plants are a haven for butterflies and moths and an important host plant for bees and numerous species of butterflies in the southwestern United States.Chuckwallas are known to relish Sweetbush.
