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Friday, April 4, 2008

Links for the areas below can be found be by using the Wildflower Site Links

Our very colorful spring continues, and though flowers are fading in certain locations, they’re peaking in some areas and just showing color in other spots.

Let’s start at Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, off Highway 79 in San Diego County, where Southern California buttercup is popping around the lake, and baby blue eyes are flowering at lower elevations of the Cuyamaca Peak fire road.

Flowers are peaking in the Coachella Valley. Look for indigo bush, rock daisy, brittle bush and sweet bush. Beavertail and barrel cactus are looking  fine. 

Though most annuals have faded in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, cacti and ocotillo are blooming in the park’s south end, and in the upper reaches with other beauties. .

Desert lily is flowering in the Riverside County’s Desert Lily Sanctuary. Take the I-10 east to Desert Center, then drive north on Highway 177 (Rice Road) to the sanctuary entrance. It’s a half-mile walk to the best displays.

Clinton Keith Road in Murrieta is lined with wildflowers. Santa Rosa Plateau yields fading chocolate lilies but fresh sweeps of redmaids, goldfields and more.

In Joshua Tree National Park, you’ll find the best color at higher elevations and a killer vista from Keys View. Annuals are popping around Hidden Valley, in and around the Wonderland of Rocks.

Look for ghost flower by the road near Porcupine Wash, and desert lavender and cacti at the lower end of Pinkham Canyon.

Joshua trees are blooming in the Mojave National Preserve, with dozens of annuals and perennials, many just starting in higher elevations.

Watch for desert dandelion, phacelia and Mojave yucca in the Cinder Cone area along Aiken Mine Road on the way to the lava tubes; and woolly daisy, desert paintbrush and desert rue by the trail to Teutonia Peak. Look for desert live-forever on rocky cliffs.

Desert lily can be spotted from Highway 62, about 30 miles west of the junction of the 62 and 127, around Iron Age Road. They’re mixed with sand verbena, desert dandelion and dusty maidens.  

The season is waning in Death Valley National Park. But there’s notch-leaf phacelia, desert poppy, pincushion and paintbrush along Highway 374 towards Beatty, and on the 190 near the Darwin turnoff.

Less-traveled roads of San Luis Obispo County promise views that rival Monet’s best. The Shell Creek area off Highway 58 sports blue and gold. An area just northeast of the junction of Highways 41 and 46 near Cholame [Chō’-lāme] mixes white, yellow, orange and blue.

The northern half of the Carrizo Plain National Monument has golden bush, bush lupine, blue dicks and dwarf owl’s clover at higher elevations A little rain and cool weather may extend the color.

Cottonwood Canyon, in Santa Barbara County, off Highway 166 near the town of New Cuyama, has masses of Lindley’s blazing star, shooting star and cream cups.

Wildwood Park, at the west end of Avenida de las Arboles in Thousand Oaks, is a hot spot this week, with dozens of species in myriad hues along every trail and road in the park. Choice finds include Catalina mariposa lily and many species of lupine.

Fire-followers are blooming brightly in Palo Comado in the Agoura Hills, especially along the China Flat Trail. Among others, there are whispering bells, windmill pink and the closely related many-nerved catchfly.

At the north end of the Santa Monica Mountains, La Jolla Canyon and La Jolla Valley Loop trails are still gathering raves.

Hikers in the Las Virgenes Canyon will find California peony, Santa Susana tarweed, twining snapdragon and many annuals. 

Griffith Park is recovering from last year’s fire. Common eucrypta, with tiny white blossoms, is abundant, as are wild Canterbury bells, blue dicks, blue and white ceanothus – and rare and endangered Nevin’s barberry, with prickly leaves and yellow blossoms.

Tidytips, wind poppy, desert penstemon and many others are blooming just in time for the Prisk Native Garden's Open House on Sunday, April 6 from 10 to noon. The garden is on the corner of Los Arcos and San Vicente in Long Beach. Exit the 405 at Palo Verde. Admission is free. For more information, call 562-481-5216.

And finally, peak bloom is expected this week and next at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Preserve – so gas up the car and head for California’s most famous flower fields. Displays are really grand this year, with poppies, goldfields and their usual companions visible from miles away.

Remember to stay on designated trails – and please don’t pick the flowers!

That’s it for now. Our next report will be posted Friday, April 11.