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Page Revised: 02/06/09 |
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Available Site Reviews Scenic Drives in SAMO Point Mugu State Park Hondo Canyon Circle X Ranch Red Rock Canyon State Park Peter Strauss Ranch Cold Creek Preserve Rancho Sierra Vista |
Date of Reviews 2/4. 2/2 & 1/9. 1/13. 1/12 & 11/19 &
11/11. 1/10. 1/6. 1/3. 11/6. |
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Quick Links What's Blooming Now - Photo highlights of the current
flower reports. Wildflowers
of the Santa Monica Mountains - Photos of over 700 species. Archive - Previous “What's Blooming” reports. Outdoors - The
Calendar of Events for the Santa Monica Mountains NRA. |
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Still not very much to report. The cool rainy weather slows down the approach
of Spring but at the same time is essential for a good flower display later
in the year. A few people have been sending me reports but they pretty much
uniformly say there is not much in the way of flowers to look at. Despite this I’ve been photographing
flowers and should be able to fill in a few blanks in the flower gallery
sometime in the next few weeks. The Bigpod Ceanothus (which seemed near the
end of it’s blooming season up here at CXR) really got beat down with
this weekend’s rains. I’ve
yet to have a chance to look around much but hope I can get out for a while
tomorrow. If you see something worth
reporting send me a line. Most of what
I have been hearing about is the same few dozen sparsely scattered species
(with the exception of the Ceanothus) although SB’s report about the Coreopsis getting going is another
sure sign that Spring is approaching.
See you on the trails. I’ve made several changes to
the layout of the Wildflower website lately and one of
them is a new search called What’s
Blooming Now. I will try to keep
this up to date with the highlights of the flower sightings people have
reported here. As always, if you have any comments
or questions, or wish to file a flower report, you can email me at address at
the bottom of this page. – ed. |
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SAMO Scenic Drives |
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Date: early Feb |
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Scenic driving through the mountains: Kanan Road, Malibu Canyon Rd and
Mulholland Highway -- The frosted shrubs you see everywhere, especially at
higher elevations or near the coast, are predominately the white flowers of
big pod ceanothus, just occasionally you’ll see a pale blue greenback
ceanothus. Along Pacific Coast Highway and near
the coast on the other roads are lots of bush sunflower (yellow flowers with
dark centers), in shaded areas you’ll see canyon sunflowers (yellow
flowers with gold centers). Also on Pacific Coast Highway, the
first Coreopsis (bouquets of yellow daisies with the stalk seeming to grow
out of the cliffs or right out of rocky areas) are in bloom from Zuma Beach
to Sycamore Canyon campground. From the campground to Mugu Rock blooms grow
sparser. From Mugu Rock to Las Posas road, coreopsis stalks and leaves are
showing, but no flowers yet. Bloom rating for the higher
elevations is very good for number of blooms, but just starting for number of
species, for PCH bloom is good, but just starting. – Sheila
Braden. |
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Point Mugu State Park |
Hidden
Pond Trail |
Date: 2/2 |
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Not much to report yet. Highlights
include Bigpod Ceanothus, Wild Sweet Pea, Bush Sunflower, Wild Cucumber,
Purple Nightshade and Prickly Phlox. – Fred
Nuesca. |
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Hondo Canyon |
Backbone
Trail |
Date: 1/13 |
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Backbone Trail, Hondo Canyon - trail
head at Old Topanga. Bermuda buttercup (or Oxalis); California polypody;
California buttercup; California everlasting; California lace fern; Cliff
aster [White aster]; Coastal wood fern [California wood fern]; Coffee fern;
Crimson Pitcher Sage [Hummingbird sage]; Dwarf chaparral broom [coyote
brush]; Goldback fern; Milkmaids; Mustard, (Mediterranean ?); Purple
nightshade; Red-stemmed filaree; White chaparral currant; Wild sweet pea;
Wild cucumber; Ceanothus (Hoary leaved Ceanothus ?) – Sarah
Dickey. |
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Circle X Ranch |
Misc.
Trails |
Date: 1/12 |
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I’ve looked at several of the
trails recently and we are beginning to see a few of the early annuals just
beginning to bloom. Of the thirty or
so different flowers I’ve seen many are individuals who’s siblings
are nowhere near flowering yet.
Highlights (not including the standout individuals) include popcorn
flower, red stem filaree, an increasing number of bigpod ceanothus, deerweed,
California buckwheat, several two-tone everlasting, many wild cucumber, lace
pod, some hold-out cudweed aster, purple nightshade, a few of the different
celeries, the chaparral current still doing well, bigberry manzanita,
wishbone bush, a few shooting stars (but you have to look carefully to find
them,) a few dried-up California fuchsia and some nice stands of California
bay trees. By the way, this is the best time of
year to visit Sandstone Peak if you want to see the islands. I’ve seen the distant San Nicolas and
even San Clemente a number of times recently. – ed. |
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Red Rock Canyon State
Park |
Calabasas
Peak Motorway |
Date: 1/10 |
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Calabasas Peak Motorway - Red Rock
[fire] Rd. Mustard (Mediterranean?); Cliff aster [White Aster]; Crimson
Pitcher Sage [Hummingbird sage]; Dwarf chaparral broom [coyote brush]; Purple
nightshade; Red-stemmed filaree; White chaparral currant; Wild cucumber; Wild
sweet pea; California peony; Canyon dodder; Downy indian paintbrush; Mule
fat; California Prickly phlox; Slender sunflower; Southern tauschia; Sweet
alyssum; Popcorn Flower (variety ?); Wishbone plant [Wishbone bush]; Woolly
indian paintbrush – Sarah
Dickey. |
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Cheeseboro Canyon |
Cheeseboro Canyon Trail |
Date: 1/9 |
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Cheeseboro Canyon - Cheeseboro Canyon Trail. Mustard
(Mediterranean?); Purple nightshade; White chaparral currant; Wild cucumber;
California peony; Canyon dodder; California Prickly phlox; California
Blackberry – Sarah
Dickey. |
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Point Mugu State Park |
Backbone
Trail |
Date: 1/9 |
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This hike is the first of the NPS
sponsored Backbone Trail hikes in the 2010 series. We will be hiking from
west to east, two sections of the Backbone Trail each month. The section done
on this hike began at the coast at the Ray Miller Trailhead, proceeded up the
Ray Miller Trail, along the Overlook Fire Road, down the Wood Canyon Trail,
then north along the Sycamore Canyon Fire Road to the Danielson multi-use
area. It is still too early to see huge numbers of flowers, but including
scattered holdouts from last season and a few pioneering individuals ahead of
their relatives we saw over thirty different species in bloom. Only a few of these could really be said to
be in bloom right now. Flowering highlights included wild cucumber,
bladderpod, wishbone bush, a growing number of early bigpod ceanothus,
rattlesnake weed (the low prostrate one), oxalis, deerweed, chaparral
current, a very nice prickly phlox, some mostly finished cudweed aster, and
one fuchsia-flowered gooseberry. – ed. |
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Peter Strauss Ranch |
Cheeseboro Canyon Trail |
Date: 1/6 |
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Mustard (Mediterranean ?); Wild
cucumber; California peony; California Prickly phlox; Coastal wood fern
[California wood fern]; Coffee fern; Goldback fern; Milkmaids; California
Maiden-hair fern; Chickweed; Fiddlenecks (Common) – Sarah
Dickey. |
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Cold Creek Preserve |
Stunt High Trail |
Date: 1/3 |
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Stunt High Trail (return along Stunt Road) California polypody; California
everlasting; California peony; California sunflower [Bush sunflower]; Cliff
aster (White Aster); Coastal wood fern [California wood fern]; Coffee fern;
Cream bush; Goldback fern; Greenbark ceanothus; Hairy-leaved ceanothus;
Lupines; Mustard (Mediterranean ?); Milkmaids; Purple nightshade; Red
monardella ; Red-stemmed filaree; Wild cucumber; Wild sweet pea; Wishbone
plant [Wishbone bush] – Sarah
Dickey. |
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Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area 401 West
Hillcrest Drive 805-370-2301 www.nps.gov/samo |
If you
would like to contribute to the wildflower report: e-mail: or phone
Tony at 310-457-6408 |
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What’s Blooming on the web at www.researchlearningcenter.com/bloom or go to www.nps.gov/samo and click on
“What’s Blooming”
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