Coyote brush, also called chaparral broom, is a woody, erect to rounded, perennial shrub that is much branched and grows to 12' tall.  The herbage is evergreen and ± resinous, and the branches are longitudinally grooved.  The numerous small leaves are alternate, light green, oval to obovate, entire-margined to 5-9-toothed, and mostly 1/2" to 1-1/2" long.  Coyote brush has staminate and pistillate flowers on separate plants (see the male flowers in the first picture, and the female flowers in the second and third).  There are many flowering heads in clusters both axillary and terminal on leafy branchlets with involucres that are hemispheric to bell-shaped and 4-6 series of ovate (outer) to lance-oblong (inner), rounded to acute-tipped phyllaries with narrow scarious fimbrillate margins.  The fruit is a 10-nerved achene with a pappus of tawny hairlike bristles.  Coyote brush is commonly found in coastal sage scrub and chaparral on hillsides and in canyons below 2500' from San Diego County to Oregon, blooming from August to December.

Click here for Latin name derivations: 1) Baccharis 2) pilularis.
Pronunciation: BAK-ar-is pil-yoo-LARE-is.
Click here for Botanical Term Meanings.