|
Available Reviews
Circle X Ranch Malibu Creek SP Will Rogers SP Malibu Lagoon State Beach |
Date of Review
3/31/18. 3/28/18. 3/23/18. 8/2/17. |
|
| ||
|
This site has been quiet this season, and no wonder. I've talked to the people who usually submit reports and they say things like "its depressing" or "why bother". I think everyone locally knows that the drought in SoCal is serious (currently ranked as D2: Severe Drought), but I still get emails from people asking about the flowers. They are usually folks from out of town about to visit the Land Of Eternal Sunshine who have also heard of the famous wildflower displays. I have to tell them it is another sad year for the flowers, but I am quick to add the beauty and grandeur of the trails in the Santa Monica Mountains stand on their own. Yes, the flowers were one of the reasons I always got out on the trails in the Spring, but they are certainly not the only reason to be hiking. And there never are no flowers in SoCal, although you have to know your way around for relatively few rewards when it is dry. Those of you who know can be of even greater service in a year like this. I wish I could be adding my own reports to this site, but I'm thousands of miles away and when I look out my window I see an awful lot of snow. It's been a weird year here too – crazy to hear robins and red-winged blackbirds singing their Song of Spring in all that snow!
This site performs a public service that anyone can participate in. Let us all know what you are seeing! In general, if you are submitting a report I will usually get it much faster if you use the gmail account 'SMMWildFlowers' rather than my nps.gov account. If you are new to submitting a report (or maybe even an old hand at it) be sure and read How To Submit a Flower Report — ed. |
| Circle X Ranch |
|
3/31/2018 |
Despite the recent rains, seeking wildflowers on the Mishi Mokwa Trail was more of a treasure hunt than an immersive experience, but there was treasure worth hunting for. We began the loop at the Mishe Makwa trailhead and, initially, flower sighting were few and insignificant. There was a little bit of California buckwheat, California everlasting, wild cucumber, deerweed and woolly lomatium in the chaparral. On the long descent to Split Rock there were very few flowers to spot, just some greenbark ceanothus and one or two blue dicks. The area beyond Split Rock is where it began to get interesting. Two of the less common ceanothus varieties; hoary leaf ceanothus and white thorn were in very full bloom. They were interspersed with silk tassel bush and a beautiful chaparral currant. Then we began seeing padre's shooting stars, lots of them. This was a surprise because they usually bloom much earlier in the season. But there were many of them growing in large swathes and growing in places where I have not seen them in the past. We also began to see prickly phlox, another flower that usually blooms earlier in the year. We saw a little Eastwood manzanita and that completed our flower observations.
— Dorothy Steinicke
|
||
| Malibu Creek SP |
|
3/38/2018 |
| Along crags road between Las Virgenes creek and Malibou Lake - a lot of wild cucumber along with ceanothus megacarpus. Some patches of poppies out west towards Malibou Lake. — TM | ||
| Will Rogers State Historic Park |
|
3/23/2018 |
|
I wanted to let you know of some flowers I spotted on March 23, 2018 during a hike at Will Rogers State Historic Park. I was on the Inspiration Point Loop Trail and spotted California brittlebrush. This is a California State Park and it is also the eastern terminus of the Backbone Trail, which crosses the Santa Monica Mountains.
From the parking lot just beyond the park gate (bring money for parking), the trail heads up the mountain to the left of the tennis courts west of the ranch house and ranger office. I noticed a very small cluster of the California brittlebrush on an intersection of the trail. At this point, there is the fire road to the left and a narrower trail that leads up on the right. The trail itself was fairly muddy in some areas on this day (day after heavy rain), but it is otherwise easily accessible. — Ana Cholo 
|
||
| Malibu Lagoon State Beach |
|
8/2/2017 |
When it is just too hot to hike in the canyons it is good to remember that there are lots of interesting plants growing by the beach, at least some beaches. Malibu Lagoon was recently restored and has a lot of California native plants that you don't see in the hills and canyons. The California fuchsia is coming into bloom and was well attended by hummingbirds. There is alkali heath, bladder pod, wand buckwheat and wild heliotrope as well as other more familiar flowers. There are also a lot of interesting water birds to watch.
— Dorothy Steinicke
|
||
Contact Information:
|
Santa Monica Mountains NRA 401 West Hillcrest Drive Thousand Oaks, CA 91360 805-370-2301 www.nps.gov/samo |
If you would like to contribute a wildflower report you can e-mail the editor at: Tony_Valois@nps.gov Or, for faster response use the gmail account SMMWildFlowers@gmail.com |
|
What's Blooming
on the web at
www.smmflowers.org/whatsblooming
or go to
www.nps.gov/samo
click on
"Plan Your Visit" >> "Things to Do" >> "Look for Wildflowers"
