Friday, May 2, 2008

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

Welcome to the 26th annual Wildflower Hotline, brought to you by the Theodore Payne Foundation, a non-profit native plant nursery, seed source, bookstore and education center dedicated to the preservation of wildflowers and California native plants.

May arrives with warm spring days and fabulous wildflowers in various regions. We offer a sampling of the best. Go quickly to your chosen destinations, before hotter weather shortens the show.

Our first stop is Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, in San Diego County, where white Cuyamaca meadow foam is at peak bloom in swales on the north side of the lake. The lovely view is embellished by tidy tips, goldfields, checkerbloom and more.

Goldfields are also profuse in the northern, dry portion of Lake Cuyamaca -- and along the S1 near the junction with Highway 79.

Local high deserts are still beautiful. A drive through the Mojave National Preserve reveals flowering cacti and other late-blooming delights. Along Cedar Canyon Road, you’ll see yellow desert marigold and gray-leaf blue sage.

Cima Road has more than a dozen blooming species, including banana yucca, and Fremont phacelia. Kelso-Cima Road has coyote melon, rayless encelia and more.

Macedonia Canyon sports luscious orange desert mariposa lily and more. Wildhorse Canyon Road has mariposa lily, too, plus desert thistle and others.

Joshua Tree National Park still has fields of yellow desert dandelion at high elevations and cacti blooming everywhere. Shrubby apricot mallow, senna and creosote add color. And exquisite mariposa lilies are blooming now in Queen Valley.

Way up north in Plumas County in the Feather River Canyon in the Sierra Nevada Mountains of northeastern California, take the 60-mile drive between Oroville and Quincy on Highway 70. Various wildflowers creep up the canyon as the elevation increases. From Pulga to Belden, there are lupines, fritillary, wallflower, dogwood and others. For more information, visit our website for a link to the Plumas County Visitors Bureau Bloom Blog.

Only the toughest flowers, such as poppy, larkspur, lupine and goldenbush, are still flowering on the Carrizo Plain National Monument, and recent high temperatures assure that the season is ending there.

In Kern County, you’ll see flowering lupines and more around the Grapevine. And hillsides near Ridgecrest have desert dandelion, goldfields and suncups. But go now, as warm weather will quickly end the show.

Various sites in the Santa Monica Mountains – from Circle X Ranch in the North to Topanga State Park to La Tuna Canyon – offer motorists, cyclists and hikers plenty of color. Mid-spring bloomers include blue dicks, monkey flower, clarkia, black sage, prickly phlox and more.

The Gorman hills, on the east side of the I-5, are dusted with pale blue globe gilia and yellow coreopsis, with sparse numbers of poppy and lupine.

South of Gorman, bloom has started and is improving in Hungry Valley. Dozens of species flower in this area, with goldfields, tidy tips, wild parsley and others looking good this week. Flowering shrubs include linear-leaf goldenbush and bush lupine. And word has it that wildflowers are “busting out all over” near Gold Hill Road. Yellow coreopsis and purple lupine dominate the view.

In the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve, poppies are going to seed on slopes but still showing color in the lower areas. Bright purple bush lupine is visible from trails. The South Poppy Loop is a good destination, and Kitanemuk Point Vista offers panoramic views of the park and surrounding private land, much of which is still dressed in orange. Cool weather will extend the show. Warm days will shorten it.

Protect our precious wildflowers as you travel. Always stay on designated trails, and please don’t pick the flowers!

That’s it for this week. Our next report will be posted Friday, May 9th. Check back every week for the most current information on where to see wildflowers.