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Nurse‐plants generally have positive effects on understorey species by creating more suitable conditions for stress‐intolerant plants relative to open micro‐habitats. However, long‐term effects of this plant–plant facilitation system have been rarely examined. Seeds of five desert annual species from Atiquipa coastal desert in Southern Peru were used to examine whether different microenvironmental conditions under the nurse‐plants Caesalpinia spinosa Molina (Kuntze) lead to differences in seed biology and germinability of annual plants relative to open, canopy‐free conditions. Seeds collected from plants associated with nurse‐plants were predicted to be (i) larger due to more favourable growing conditions, (ii) more viable and with greater germination rates, (iii) less variable in size and viability due to reduced environmental heterogeneity, and (iv) to germinate faster to avoid apparent competition with other …