Page Revised: 1/24/09
Available Site Reviews Circle X Ranch	Date of Review 1/18.
What's Blooming photo gallery: http://www.researchlearningcenter.com/bloom/bloom.htm What's Blooming archive: http://www.researchlearningcenter.com/bloom/archive/index.htm Calendar of Events: http://www.nps.gov/samo/planyourvisit/outdooractivities.htm

The spring flowering season has been running late this year although there are signs that it is finally getting started. In particular the bigpod ceanothus is starting to bloom, at least up here at CXR. A scattering of other perennials are also starting to bloom, although some, like the manzanitas and currents, have been blooming for a while now. Last season was hard on many of our plants. It will be interesting to see how well they recover this year. –ed.

Circle X Ranch		Grotto Trail.	Date: 1/18
	We hiked down to the grotto last weekend but there was not much in the way of flowers to report about. We saw a total of twenty different species in bloom and that included all the weedy things we encountered and several that were actually seen as we hunted around off-trail. Without exception everything we saw blooming was a perennial and none had started to bloom in any abundance yet. The bigpod ceanothus was just barely beginning to bloom on the 18^th, but now on the 24^th it looks like most of the population has started to bloom. So far the hills have only a faint blush of white on them. It will be interesting to see how they do this year given the horrible stress they were under last year. –ed.

Contact Information: Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area 401 West Hillcrest Drive Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 805-370-2301	If you would like to contribute to the wildflower report: e-mail: Tony_Valois@partner.nps.gov or phone Tony at 310-457-6408