Erect to low-growing shrubs 3–7 feet tall have spreading to prostrate branches covered with pale-yellow to white flowers when blooming. Note the tiny leaves with three nubby lobes on the tip, and the seeds do not have long, feathery tails. Evergreen foliage provides important high-protein winter browse for ungulates.

FLOWERS: May–August. Solitary from branch tips; 5 petals, each 1/8–1/4 inch long (4–7 mm), white to pale-yellow; base narrow, tip rounded, fragrant; many long, yellow stamens. Seed capsules oval, 1/4–1/2 inch long (7–11 mm), densely hairy, leathery, with a short, non-feathery style at the tip.

LEAVES: Alternate, two types: small thick evergreen, and larger thin, summer-winter deciduous; short-stalked in bundles on side twigs; blades wedge-shaped with 3 shallow lobes on tip, 1/4–5/8 inches long (5–15 mm) by 1/8–1/4 inch wide (3–6 mm), top surface green, hairy, bottom greenish-white cobwebby hairy; edges rolled under.

HABITAT: Dry slopes, hills, flats: sagebrush shrub lands, pinyon-juniper woodlands, ponderosa pine-Douglas fir, spruce-fir forests.

ELEVATION: 5,800–8,600 feet (1768–2621 m).

RANGE: AZ, CA, CO, ID, MT, NM, NV, OR, UT, WA, WY; Canada to Mexico.

SIMILAR SPECIES: The evergreen, Desert Bitterbush, P. tridentata var. glandulosa (AZ, CA, NV, UT) has only one type of leaf. Cliffrose, P. stansburyana, has leaves with 5–7 tiny lobes, and seeds with long, feathery tails. For further comparison see Apache Plume, Fallugia paradoxa, a common companion plant.

NM COUNTIES: Widespread, common in northern NM in mid-elevation, semi-desert habitats: Cibola, Colfax, McKinley, Rio Arriba, San Juan, Sandoval, Santa Fe.