...perhaps that's why they call it frog fruit

This is Phyla nodiflora, (frog fruit, sawtooth fogfruit, turkey tangle, Lippia) but you can also find it called fogfruit (without the "r"). Perhaps the fogfruit camp never saw the green color and flipper-like growths that remind me of frog's feet.

Most pictures online are of the flowers, zoomed in to show them in detail. Here's a news flash: The flowers aren't so impressive in reality.

There may be some controversy about frog fruit among the native plant community - there's supposed to be local variants, but none have attained sufficient attention or differentiation to have a specific epithet (unlike Ca poppy, which is Eschscholzia californica generically and the now-officially-not-in-use-despite-obvious-growth-and-visual-differences, Eschscholzia californica maritima for the coastal variant).  Phyla nodiflora may have been sold in nurseries from stock taken from elsewhere in the world back in the early part of the 1900s when it had a surge of popularity in the nursery trade.  The real California variety might be hard to find.  This bunch comes from Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, so I hope they did their job well.

Lippia / Phyla nodiflora seems to have had a peak of botanical interest in 1925.  Here's a page from a 1905 book, Contributions from the United States National Herbarium, Volume 8, on it.

 Even back then, at least someone recognized the value of lawn replacement in California and other dry climates.