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Page Revised: 7/28/06 |
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Available Sites Cheeseboro/Palo Comado Cyns |
Date of Review 7/27/06 |
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What's Blooming photo gallery: www.nps.gov/samo/bloom/bloom.htm |
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Cheeseboro/Palo
Comado Cyns & MRCA Upper Las Virgenes Cyn Open Space |
Various Trails |
Date: 7/27/06 |
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The high heat we’ve had over
the last few weeks has pushed us deeply into the summer season and
prematurely dried up many flowers. In addition, these units are farther from
the cooling effect of the coast than most in the Santa Monica Mountains and
consequently have suffered more. You can always find holdouts in sheltered
areas under trees and by water sources but even these areas seem to be
yielding paltry rewards this year. We spent three days hiking and driving
through various parts of these units as part of a Park Service vegetation
survey and found very few flowers doing well now except for those adapted to
deep summer blooming. Even these seem more dried up than usual so the flower
count was quite low. Daytime hiking in the recent heat requires special care.
I have been hiking with well over a gallon of water (generally ten or twelve
pints) and have yet to have any left at the end of a long hike. Be aware that
much of this unit was burned in last fall's fires and has not been fully
reopened for visitor use. Be sure to read all posted signs to avoid entering
closed areas. Some of the burned areas are especially fragile right now. The only flowers doing OK at this
time (excluding weedy non-natives) included twiggy wreath plant, Spanish
clover, prickly lettuce, narrow-leaved milkweed, California buckwheat,
California fuchsia, mugwort, turkey mullein, canchalagua, slender sunflower,
and bush mallow, None of these were encountered in great number and some were
found only in remote sheltered areas not easily accessible by the public. In
addition, the casual observer might overlook some of these because of their
small blossoms and “weedy” appearance. Some flowers still blooming but which
seemed to be on their last legs included deerweed, golden yarrow, a few hold-out
perezia, cliff aster, horehound, a few mostly dried up scarlet larkspur,
slender tarweed, some sad looking bush monkey flower, downy monkey flower,
California everlasting, wand mullein, sapphire wool stars, hooked navarretia,
wild morning glory, golden prince’s plume, fleabane aster, a few white
pincushion, and Indian pink. Overall a very poor showing for three days of
hiking. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Poor |
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Rancho Sierra Vista |
Wendy and Satwiwa Loop trails |
Date: 7/23/06 |
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I hiked the Wendy and Satwiwa Loop
trails on July 23rd, thinking it wouldn't be too hot at 8am but by 9am it was
already 95 degrees. Poor rating for
there were few flowers with many drying up.
I saw wild rose, bush mallow, slender tarweed, cliff aster, milkweed,
laurel sumac, mustard, wild radish, sweet fennel and one last poppy. Rabbits were abundant. I came across a beautiful 2 foot
rattlesnake. (KJ) |
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Naturalist's rating: Poor |
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Point Dume Nature Preserve |
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Date: 7/21/06 |
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This lovely area reached from Dume
Drive is beautiful in any season with cool breezes and long ocean views. A lot of work has been done to remove non-native
vegetation, especially ice plant. The
result has been a splendid blossoming of unusual native coastal strand
flowers. But this is not their best
season. There are collarless poppies,
dudleya, beach evening primrose, telegraph weed and prickly pear in
bloom. But really not even very much
of any of these. (DS) |
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Naturalist's rating: Poor |
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Charmlee Park |
Musch Trail |
Date: 7/21/06 |
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One of the special flowers of this park
is the Santa Susana tarweed and it's right there next to the parking
lot. It's busier and more aromatic
than it more common cousin the slender tarweed. I was concerned that this might be an
unbearably hot hike in July but, at least on the day we went, the proximity
to the ocean gave us some cool breezes. Most flowers here are scant and past
their prime. These include; California
everlasting, golden yarrow, slender tarweed, sticky monkey flower, bush
mallow, purple sage, humming bird sage, morning glory, white yarrow, canyon
sunflower, caterpillar phacelia, purple clarkia, black sage and
deerweed. There were some surprises. The California fuchsia is already starting
as is the wedge leaf horkelia. There
is turkey mullein and narrow leaf milkweed.
The Indian paintbrush seems to be going strong. (DS) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Topanga State Park |
Musch Trail |
Date: 7/17/06 |
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I was on the Musch Trail in early morning
and there are still some displays of everlasting and buckwheat, but things
are drying up fast. There is heart-leaved penstemon, a little notable
penstemon, perezia, scarlet larkspur, slender tarweed, and bush mallow. (LH) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Cold Creek Preserve |
Stunt High Trail |
Date: 7/17/06 |
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The predominant flower on the
riparian portion of this trail is bush mallow. There is also heart leaf penstemon, slender
tarweed, cliff aster as well as the occasional elegant clarkia and golden
yarrow and little patches of Indian pinks here and there. Leather root is blooming at the edge of the
creek and scarlet monkey flower in the creek.
The chaparral portion of the trail has suffered some overzealous trail
maintenance which has wiped out most of the trailside flowers. There is honeysuckle, toyon, wild rose,
purple sage, narrow leaf milkweed, scarlet bugler, gumplant, purple clarkia
and scarlet larkspur, but not much of any of them. (DS) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Pt. Mugu State Park |
Thornhill Broome Beach |
Date: 7/17/06 |
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The beach can be a lovely place for a
walk, especially when temperatures in the hills and valleys are hovering in
the high 90s and low 100s. There is not a lot of shade but the air is cooler
and the sound of the surf can be very relaxing. In addition, for flower
watchers the blooms encountered there are often very different from
elsewhere. This environment is actually very harsh and consequently the
variety of plant species is often quite low. As you move away from the surf
the plant diversity quickly climbs and sometimes in a matter of a couple
hundred yards you are in a completely different ecosystem. I confined my walk
to the loose sands between the beach and the coastal sage scrub that starts
almost immediately as you move inland. This is the so-called coastal strand
ecosystem which has become increasingly scarce since this habitat has been a
prime target for housing development and is otherwise easily damaged by
trampling beach-goers. When I come here I always look for the beach morning
glory growing here but have yet to see it in bloom. Oh well, maybe next time. A listing of highlights in this type
of site become almost a complete listing of all the plants encountered.
However, if we exclude the ever-present weedy aliens, the highlights include
beach evening primrose, pink sand verbena, sea rocket, and silver beach-bur.
Including the sage scrub that is quite visible to the north of the beach we
can add prickly pear, yucca, laurel sumac, twiggy wreath plant, both
California and ashy leaf buckwheat, telegraph weed, both lance-leaf and caulk
dudleya, prostrate spurge, bush mallow, tree tobacco, cliff aster, a single
little white nightshade, and elderberry. This is a pretty good showing for
this ecosystem even though we only saw about two dozen different plants in
bloom. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Castro Crest region |
Backbone Trail between Latigo and Corral |
Date: 7/16/06 |
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Backbone Trail from Latigo Rd.
trailhead east to Corral Canyon Rd. trailhead. We also included a short jaunt
up the Castro Peak motorway to Bulldog road. Many of the spring flowers have dried
up for the season although a few can still be found scattered about in the
shade if one looks carefully. This is a good hike for the warmer months of
summer as quite a bit of it is shaded. The cooler and wetter areas associated
with the oak woodland and riparian ecosystems allow spring plants to hold on
longer than in drier and hotter ecosystems. However, these same conditions
also allow poison oak to thrive, and
while most of the trail is wide enough to make it easy to stay out of the
foliage there are a couple of places where the trail is both narrow and the
oak is right at the trail’s edge. The middle and east end sections take
you up into the drier chaparral and sage scrub ecosystems which provides a
larger variety of plants over the length of this portion of the backbone
trail. The relatively low density of flowers we saw might have dropped this
trail’s rating down to poor at the height of the blooming season, but
this is a decent showing for the summer months. There are a lot of
similarities between this section of the Backbone trail and the one reported
on 7-14-06 below. Although there are fewer total flowers there is some compensation
in that there are some rather unusual ones. One additional thing worth
mentioning, this section of the trail includes the site of a modest burn from
last fall near the Corral Canyon trailhead. While the spectacular flower
display reported earlier for this burn has mostly finished for the season it
is still an interesting place to visit in its own right. Some of the flowering highlights
include toyon, chamise, bush mallow, laurel sumac, woolly blue curls, some
black sage, a bit of purple sage, heart-leaved penstemon, scarlet bugler,
fleabane aster, an early woolly aster, cliff aster, bush monkey flower,
slender sunflower, bush sunflower, scarlet larkspur, twiggy wreath plant,
Plummer’s mariposa lily, a single Humboldt lily, golden yarrow, a fair
amount of California wild rose, chaparral honeysuckle, California fuchsia,
perezia, narrow-leaved milkweed, annual paintbrush, a good bit of
canchalagua, bird’s beak, Indian pink, California buckwheat, Spanish
clover, wild morning glory, white pincushion, large-flowered phacelia, a lone
soap plant, Santa Susana tarweed, perennial wool star, Dolores champion, and
hawkweed. All told about seventy different plant species in bloom. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Circle X Ranch |
Mishe Mokwa loop trail And Sandstone Peak |
Date: 7/15/06 |
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Essentially all of the spring flowers
have dried up although a few can still be found scattered about under the oaks
and by the creek if one looks carefully. Even the perennial shrubs which were
blooming well in June have mostly given up thanks the heat we’ve had
over the last few weeks. The dry upper sections of this trail pass through
sage scrub and chaparral and are almost devoid of flowers. This is especially
true of the sandstone peak trail which is famous for its grand panoramas.
Indeed, most of the flowers we encountered were scattered about in rather low
numbers and several in the overall species count were based on a single
dried-up specimen. Some sections of this trail provide a bit of shade, but
once you get up toward the ridges there is not much relief from the sun. On a
hot day I’ll carry almost a gallon of water to do this loop. The creek
at split rock still has water in it and makes the picnic table in the shade
under the oaks a very pleasant for lunch. This is also an area were you can
still find a few of the spring flowers hiding out from the heat. There are a
couple of places where poison oak hangs out over the trail (notably near
split rock) and you really have to be on the watch and be able to identify it by sight to avoid getting into
it. It’s hard to talk about flower
highlights when there are so few, but they would include linanthus, slender
tarweed, chamise, chaparral honeysuckle, Fish's milkwort, cobweb thistle,
bush mallow, a couple of rose snapdragons, bird’s beak, toyon, twiggy
wreath plant, the very fragrant pitcher sage, heart-leaved penstemon, chalk
dudleya, Spanish clover, California fuchsia, turkey mullein, scarlet monkey
flower, bush monkey flower, golden yarrow, Tejon milk-aster, and California
buckwheat. Fewer than forty different plant species in bloom. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Poor |
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Upper Zuma Canyon |
Backbone Trail between Kanan and Mulholland |
Date: 7/14/06 |
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Backbone Trail from Kanan Rd.
Trailhead west to Mulholland Rd. Many of the spring flowers have dried
up for the season although a few can still be found scattered about in the
shade if one looks carefully. This is a good hike for the warmer months of
summer as quite a bit of it is shaded. The cooler and wetter areas associated
with the oak woodland and riparian ecosystems allow spring plants to hold on
longer than in drier and hotter ecosystems. However, same conditions also
allow poison oak to thrive, and while
most of the trail is wide enough to make it easy to stay out of the foliage
there are a couple of places where the trail is narrow and the oak is right
at the trail’s edge. The west end also passes through the drier
chaparral and sage scrub ecosystems providing for a larger variety of plants
over the length of this section of the Backbone trail. The relatively low
density of flowers we saw might have dropped this trail’s rating down
to fair at the height of the blooming season, but this is a pretty good
showing for the summer months. Some of the flowering highlights
include toyon, laurel sumac, heart-leaved penstemon, chalk dudleya, chamise,
cliff aster, elegant clarkia, hedge nettle, bush monkey flower, branching
phacelia, slender sunflower, bush mallow, scarlet larkspur, twiggy wreath
plant, Plummer’s mariposa lily, golden yarrow, common madia, California
wild rose, cream bush, checker bloom, snow berry, coffee berry, Fish’s
milkwort, chaparral honeysuckle, perezia, bird’s beak, hillside
penstemon, Indian pink, woolly blue curls, California buckwheat, wild morning
glory, and narrow-leaved milkweed. All told about sixty different plant
species in bloom. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Good |
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Circle X Ranch |
Triunfo Backbone Trail |
Date: 6/30/06 |
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Many of the spring flowers have dried
up for the season although a few can still be found scattered about if one
looks carefully. We are beginning to see good numbers of some of the true
summer flowers like twiggy wreath plant, cliff aster, slender tarweed, and
scarlet larkspur. This trail passes principally through dry coastal sage
scrub and chaparral with little relief from the sun. The trail was brushed a
couple of months back but some sections have grown back with a bit of thistle
and foxtail. I still wear shorts while hiking this trail but I also wear
gators to protect my socks. For some people long pants might be in order.
When I was there I saw quite a few butterflies including both checkers and
swallowtails. Except for some of the shrubs like
bush monkey flower, chamise, laurel sumac, black sage, and California
buckwheat most of the flowers are scattered about in rather low numbers.
Flower highlights include, Plummer's mariposa lily, California chicory,
branching phacelia, good numbers of both speckled clarkia and
farewell-to-spring, masses of golden yarrow, yellow monkey flower, hedge
nettle, perezia, rock rose, lance-leaf dudleya, wild morning glory, Turkish
rugging, purple nightshade, woolly blue curls, bush mallow, a lot of canyon
sunflower, some slender sunflower, pitcher sage, bird’s beak, toyon,
western thistle, elderberry, heart-leaved penstemon, California fuchsia,
California thistle, and the dramatic native bleeding heart. All told about
sixty species in bloom. (BC & TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Good |
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Rancho Sierra Vista |
Misc. Trails |
Date: 6/28/06 |
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Trails hiked include the Wendy Trail,
portions of the Satwiwa Loop Trail, The Hidden Valley Overlook Trail, and portions
of the Ranch Overlook Trail. Many of the spring flowers have dried up for the
season although a few can still be found scattered about if one looks
carefully. These trails pass principally through dry grasslands, coastal sage
scrub, and chaparral with little relief from the sun. The sections closest to
the trailheads are also the areas that are most disturbed and consequently
there is more "weedy" non-natives there. Once you go south into the
chaparral you begin to see more of the native wildflowers. Highlights include
hyssop loosestrife, turkey mullein, California wild rose, California
blackberry, bush mallow, narrow-leaved milkweed, purple sage, black sage,
California everlasting, elderberry, yarrow, golden yarrow, wild morning
glory, horehound, bush monkey flower, canyon sunflower, heart-leaved
penstemon, hedge nettle, common vervain, deerweed, perezia, Plummer's
mariposa lily, cliff aster, purple nightshade, scarlet larkspur, slender
tarweed, California collarless poppy, chamise, and laurel sumac. All told
about forty species in bloom.. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Circle X Ranch |
Canyon View Trail |
Date: 6/24/06 |
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Many of the spring flowers have dried
up for the season although a few can still be found scattered about if one
looks carefully. Some of the true summer flowers have not gotten off to a
proper start yet and consequently we are between seasons, so to speak. This
trail and most of the Grotto trail have been recently brushed so it is again
a pleasure to hike them in shorts. Until the Canyon View trail joins the
upper section of the Grotto trail there is not much shade during the heat of
the day. In the morning and evening the trail twists around enough that the
steep hillsides above the trail can provide quite a bit of shade. The creeks
still have water in them and this provides a pleasant variety to a trail that
otherwise passes principally through dry coastal sage scrub and chaparral.
Just below the campgrounds I saw the largest alligator lizard I have ever
seen sunning himself on a rock. This guy, typical of the breed, allowed me to
get quite close before scuttling off into the bushes. Except for some of the
shrubs like bush monkey flower, deerweed, chamise, black sage, and California
buckwheat, most of the flowers are scattered about in rather low numbers.
Flower highlights include scarlet larkspur, Plummer's mariposa lily, yucca,
California chicory, cliff aster, Parry's phacelia, purple clarkia, elegant
clarkia, golden stars, masses of golden yarrow, yellow monkey flower, creek
monkey flower, annual paintbrush, white hedge nettle, rock rose, lance-leaf
dudleya, wild morning glory, heart-leaved penstemon, Turkish rugging,
California wild rose, both purple and white nightshade, woolly blue curls,
bush mallow, slender tarweed, and canyon sunflower. All told well over fifty
species in bloom. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Fair |
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Circle X Ranch |
Grotto Trail |
Date: 6/24/06 |
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We are now moving away from the
dramatic early Spring flowering season and into the more subdued displays of
Summer. As such, the shady area near the Grotto becomes a lot more attractive
as it gets hotter. The creek and falls still have a lot of water in them and
the tadpoles and newts are a delight for the young among us. When I was down
among the huge live oaks near the Grotto one of my favorites, the house wren,
was singing up a storm. Many of the flowers reported earlier are now on the way
out but in compensation we are beginning to see some of the very beautiful
flowers that appear later in the season. Among these are the clarkias and
lilies, several of which are now showing up on the Grotto Trail. In addition,
right now we are getting a pretty amazing second bloom of the greenbark
ceanothus. Indeed, it rivals a first bloom of some previous years. Including
the flowers encountered on the dirt road leading down to the campgrounds we
saw a respectable seventy species in bloom. Highlights included golden
yarrow, sugar bush, several different monkey flowers, California buckwheat.
deerweed, yucca, black sage, sunflowers, chamise, white and purple
nightshades, a few early woolly asters, elegant and purple clarkias, wild
morning glory, California blackberry, blue-eyed grass, blue dicks, red
skinned onion, chinese houses, angels gilia, lance-leaf dudleya, elderberry,
Catalina mariposa lily, heart-leaved penstemon, and crimson pitcher
sage. (TV) |
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Naturalist's rating: Good |
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Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area 401 West
Hillcrest Drive 805-370-2301 |
Thank
you for your
contributions: Bonnie
Clarfield |
If you
would like to contribute to the wildflower report: e-mail: or phone
Tony at 310-457-6408 |
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