Ambrosia dumosa is also called bur sage, burro weed, burro bush and probably by a few other names. A smaller, shrubby plant, which looks like a dead plant during dry periods, it takes on a very nice pale bluish-green appearance during periods of adequate rainfall. Not knowing a thing about desert plants when we first moved to Borrego, we thought them to be dead brush that should be cleared away...or, at least culled. The plants were numerous on the lot, and, fortunately, we decided to keep many of them for a very peculiar reason: Lizards seemed to favor them when seeking cover and our black lab, Reba, was a seasoned lizard hunter! Early on, she devised a method of flushing game by tapping her paw on the top of the low plants. Lizards would seek safety by scurrying to another plant with Reba close behind. Reba never caught the fleet reptiles, but burro bush provided her with hours of fun!
Burro bush has pesky bur-like fruit, which has a tendency to stick onto your socks or lodge themselves into grooves of shoe soles...plus getting stuck onto pet fur, but is, otherwise, a benign desert "weed" that does no harm yet adds to the authenticity of a native desert landscape. I am glad to have them in our garden.
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