I studied growth and longevity of the C₃ drought-deciduous shrub Fouquieria splendens (ocotillo) growing in the Chihuahuan Desert in New Mexico for 22 years through the analysis of rings produced in trunks and stems. Ocotillos studied had 1–64 stems longer than 40 cm, maximum stem lengths of 50–370 cm, and 21–107 growth rings in their trunks. Although trunk rings were positively related to stem rings immediately above the trunks, the base of the largest stems immediately above the trunks had up to 58% fewer rings than the trunks. One growth ring was added to every existing stem segment only in years when a new terminal segment was produced on that stem, and adjacent segments produced in the same year had only one growth ring each. While the 107 growth rings in the trunk of the presumably oldest ocotillo in this study closely match the oldest ocotillo age derived from direct evidence (104 years), the challenge now is to discover whether ocotillo trunk rings really are annual rings.