A spiny tree or large shrub, its gray and ghostly foliage give it it’s name. Most of the year the tree looks red and dead, but in the spring the smoke tree has the most beautiful bloom of purple flowers. It also gets its small hairy leaves in the spring and then loses them as summer hits. Most of the year the smoke tree’s intricately and spiny branches are the producers of food via photosynthesis. This tree thrives in the desert at low elevation in sandy soils where no other plants want to grow and shares the same family as our other nitrogen-fixing natives such as mesquites and palo verdes.