The Collaborative International Dictionary
Desert \Des"ert\, a. [Cf. L. desertus, p. p. of deserere, and F. d['e]sert. See 2d Desert.] Of or pertaining to a desert; forsaken; without life or cultivation; unproductive; waste; barren; wild; desolate; solitary; as, they landed on a desert island.
He . . . went aside privately into a desert place.
--Luke ix. 10.
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.
--Gray.
Desert flora (Bot.), the assemblage of plants growing naturally in a desert, or in a dry and apparently unproductive place.
Desert hare (Zo["o]l.), a small hare ( Lepus sylvaticus, var. Arizon[ae]) inhabiting the deserts of the Western United States.
Desert mouse (Zo["o]l.), an American mouse ( Hesperomys eremicus), living in the Western deserts.
Usage examples of "desert flora".
Small, limbless nocturnal grazers on Jast's surprisingly luxuriant and varied desert flora, they ate and defecated pretty much where they lay.
Unsettled western mountain ranges surrounded us in the distance, high desert flora like sage, scrub pine and firs, dwarfed by lack of rain.
But Lieutenant Commander Eaglebury took only two days to figure out that they were going to do something in Arizona besides look at the desert flora and fauna.