Desert Baccharis (Baccharis sergiloides), is an upright, many-stemmed shrub with green, angular stems and fairly wide, notched leaves. The leaves are deciduous at flowering, so often the shrubs appears as green stems with dry flowerheads. A member of the sunflower family, but the flowers have no "petals," that is, only disk flowers are present. In spring if it is happy it is covered with bright yellow flowers Desert Baccharis is a fairly common component of vegetation communities in canyons, washes, along streams, and other moist places in the Lower Sonoran (Creosote-Bursage Flats) and Upper Sonoran (Mojave Desert Scrub) life zones. Also known as Waterweed, because it is a water-indicating plant commonly found in seasonal streambeds.