In driving or riding through the desert the most obvious features are the four large woody shrubs: sagebrush, rabbitbrush, greasewood and four-winged saltbush. They can all reach about 8 ft tall and are usually found along washes. Sagebrush has inconspicuous flowers during the summer. It has small, broad leaves with three lobes at the tip that have the familiar sagebrush smell when crushed.

Rabbitbrush is also found in washes and on roadsides (these larger shrubs are often found in deeper soil in washes), and occurs in both a green and a grey leaved form. It has striking yellow flowers in the late summer and fall. Both forms have thin, straplike leaves.

The most widespread larger woody shrub is greasewood, a chenopod that can form broad expanses of near monocultures. It has inconspicuous flowers, like most chenopods, with thin, round leaves.

The last of the big four woody shrubs is the Four-winged Saltbush. It is probably the least common. It has gray-green leaves and produces a spike of small, inconspicuous flowers during the summer. The seeds are large and have four thin woody wings extending form them. The seeds and dead branches persist for some time on the plant.