Natural History Wanderings

Santa Monica Mountain National Recreation Area just published a new wildflower report.  They have new postings for Cold Creek Canyon and Cold Creek Preserve.

Cold Creek Preserve – “We hiked in the creek bed and along the upper trail.  We also saw several California frogs in the creek. The plants that we saw in bloom:  Caterpillar phacelia, popcorn flower, storksbill filaree, canyon sunflower, sweet yellow clover, horsetail, morning glory, sticky monkey flower, sugar bush, purple nightshade, bedstraw, blackberry, poison oak, mule fat, pitcher/hummingbird sage, miner’s lettuce, bush lupine, black sage, California buckwheat, Indian pink, greenbark ceanothus.”

Cold Creek Canyon – “We hiked mainly along the creek but saw a lot of flowers on the path down to the creek and on another path returning from the creek.  There was a lovely grove of white thorn ceanothus, which is an unusual sight.  Most of the blooms on the white thorns were gone but we spotted a few.  We saw a lot of single stemmed yellow aster-like flowers in the meadow areas.  I couldn’t find their name.  They had grasslike stems and leaves.  These are the plants we saw in bloom: elderberry, blue dick, purple nightshade, filaree, wild cucumber, California buckwheat, deerweed, sweet pea, sticky monkey flower, canyon sunflower, wild dandelion, gooseberry fuschia, yellow sweet clover, bajada lupine, greenbark ceanothus, pimpernel, black sage, cotton plant, sugar bush, yarrow, bedstraw, pitcher/hummingbird sage, windmill pink, blackberry, spring vetch, bur-weed, coastal live oak, shiny lomatium, poison oak, milk maids, white thorn ceanothus, sow thistle, prickly phlox, pin cushion, fiesta flower, two tone everlasting, mountain mahogany, chia, yucca, arroyo willow, scarlet buglar, notable penstemon.”

Go to their website to see all of their reports: http://www.researchlearningcenter.org/bloom/