One of the handsome shrubs abundant in the high desert along the base of Tanque Verde Ridge is the JOJOBA (ho-HOH-bah), or deernut. Its thick, leathery, evergreen leaves are especially noticeable in winter and furnish excellent browse for deer. The flowers are small and yellowish, but the nutlike fruits are large and edible, although bitter. They were eaten raw or parched by the Indians, and were pulverized by early-day settlers for use as a coffee substitute. Among the attractive flowering shrubs are the INDIGOBUSHES, of which there are several species adapted to the desert environment. The local, low-growing indigobushes are especially ornamental when covered with masses of deep-blue flowers in spring. Another small shrub, noticeable from February to May because of its large, tassel-like pink-to-red blossoms and its fernlike leaves is FAIRY-DUSTER. Deer browse on its delicate foliage. The PAPER FLOWER, growing in dome-shaped clumps covered with yellow flowers, sometimes blooms throughout the entire year. The petals bleach and dry and may remain on the plant weeks after the blossoms have faded. Quick to attract attention because of their apparent lack of foliage, the JOINTFIRS, of which there are several desert species, grow in clumps of harsh, stringy, yellow-green, erect stems. The skin or outer bark of the stems performs the usual functions of leaves, which on these plants have been reduced to scales. Small, fragrant, yellow blossom clusters, appearing at the stem joints in spring, are visited by insects attracted to their nectar. _Ephemerals_ Every spring, after a winter of normal rainfall, parts of the southwestern deserts are carpeted with a lush blanket of fast-growing annual herbs and wildflowers—the early spring ephemerals. The monument does not get massive displays, however, since it is lacking in the species that make the best show. But it does have many annuals that are beautiful individually or in small groups. Many of these “quickies” do not have the characteristics of desert plants; some of them, in fact, are part of the common vegetation of other climes where moisture is plentiful and summer temperatures are much less severe. What are these “foreign” plants doing in the desert, and how do they survive? With its often frostfree winter climate and its normal December-to-March rains, the desert presents in early spring ideal growing weather for annuals that are able to compress a generation into several months. Several hundred species of plants have taken advantage of this situation.