Here’s a little of what we saw today ….
Sky Lupine (Lupinus nanus) and Coast Goldfields (Lasthenia californica) share a meadow.
Primrose (Camissonia sp.)
Blue Dicks (Dichelostemma capitatum)
Pink Plectritis (Plectritis congesta)
Even the Coast Live Oaks (Quercus agrifolia) are in bloom.
A Woodland Star (Lithophragma affine) grows beneath the Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum).
California Maiden-Hair Fern (Adiantum jordanii)
California Wood Fern (Dryopteris arguta)
Goldback Fern (Pentagramma triangularis)
Western Bracken Fern (Pteridium aquilinum)
California Polypody (Polypodium californicum)
Coffee Fern (Pellaea andromedifolia)
Pacific Pea (Lathyrus vestitus) against a backdrop of California Sagebrush (Artemisia californica).
Poison Oak (Toxicodendron diversilobum) in full bloom. A lot of honey bees were working the poison oak flowers. Not to worry, though. If poison oak oil made its way into poison oak honey, we’d probably have heard about it by now.
Redberry (Rhamnus crocea)
California Blackberry (Rubus ursinus)
Milk Maids (Cardamine californica)
Hill Star (Lythophragma heterophyllum)
As the day warms up, a California Newt (Taricha torosa) heads for the comfort of a damp hole.
Blooming Manroot (Marah fabaceus)
Larkspur (Delphinium patens)
Baby Blue Eyes (Nemophila menziesii) and Silver Bush Lupine (Lupinus albifrons) leaves.
Blue Fiesta Flower (Philistoma auritum) is blooming more vigorously than anything this year. It’s pretty much everywhere you look.
Narrow-Leaved Meconella (Meconella linearis) makes a nice contrast with the fiesta flowers.
Silver Bush Lupine (Lupinus albifrons)
Here’s something you don’t see every day. A small Broomrape (Orobanche sp.) flower. Broomrape parasitizes the roots of other plants, rather than carrying on its own photosynthesis, and only appears above the surface of the soil in order to bloom.
Paint-Brush (Castilleja sp.)
Fat Solomon’s Seal (Smilacina racemosa)
Chinese Houses (Collinsia heterophylla) and a very well camouflaged Western Fence Lizard (Sceloporus occidentalis). Fence lizards are being credited for the low incidence of Lyme disease in California. Lyme disease carrying ticks in their nymphal stage feed on lizard blood, but the blood of fence lizards apparently contains a protein that kills the Lyme disease spirochete. Thus cleansed, the ticks grow up still capable of giving you a host of other unpleasant infections – but not of giving you Lyme disease. See this article to read more about it.
Fuchsia-Flowered Gooseberry (Ribes speciosum)
California Buttercup (Ranunculus californicus) and Wood Mint (Stachys bullata)
And, of course, California Poppy (Eschscholzia californica)
For more on Garland Park plants, see our subsequent posts Garzas Creek Wildflowers and Garland After the Rain. For even more, see this great site.
