Natural History Wanderings

Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area just published a new wildflower report.  They have new postings for Topanga State Park, Mugu State Park, Los Robles Open Space and Arroyo Conejo Open Space. Below are the reports and dates:

Santa Ynez Canyon   (Topanga Canyon State Park)   Santa Ynez Canyon Trail      Date: 07/21/2011

This trail is a good summer hike as much of it is in deep shade at a canyon bottom.  I went in hopes of finding some special summer flowers that I have only seen in this canyon.  The only special flower that I found in abundance was monardella, a lavender member of the mint family.  I saw it growing in three different patches, always poking out of clumps of poison oak.

We entered into the riparian section from the end of Vereda de la Montura, a street that branches off of Palisades Drive.  While there was not a profusion of flowers there were quite a lot of individual flowers.  We immediately saw heart leaf penstemon, white nightshade, California buckwheat and sticky monkey flower.  As we continued we saw the aforementioned monardella, bush lupine, honey suckle, black sage, cliff aster, scarlet monkey flower, white hedge nettle, Indian pinks and perezia,  There was a little of the ocean spray or cream bush still in bloom.  We saw one remaining Humboldt lily.

We went a short distance up into the chaparral although it was hot hot to be pleasant.  There was still a lot of scarlet larkspur, twiggy wreath plant, elderberry, chamise, cudweed aster, blooming toyon, slender tarweed, chalk live forever, lance leaf dudleya, golden yarrow, wild morning glory and one remaining Plumbers mariposa.

We backtracked and took the trail that branches to the waterfall.  We saw some coastal boykinia blooming at the edge of the creek.

This hike was special in that we saw a ring neck snake on the trail and an aquatic garter snake in one of the pools near the waterfall.  There were also newts in the creek which are always fun to watch.  – Dorothy Steinicke

Mugu State Park     Misc. Trails      Date: 07/21/2011

On Tuesday I walked from La Jolla Canyon over to Big Sycamore Canyon through Wood Canyon, and also went into the Boney Mountain Wilderness, and there are many flowers in full bloom.  California fuchsia are blooming and will bring you into close proximity with Anna’s hummingbirds.  On several occasions these charming birds hovered in my face and seemed to want to tell me something (probably “you’re in my fuchsia!”).  The lightly-saturated bush mallow is noticeable along many side trails in La Jolla Valley.  It is easy on the eyes.  Walking down Wood Canyon fire road I was pleased to see an immense hillside to the left completely covered with ceanothus, and on the north-facing slopes blue ceanothus blossoms are blooming.   Keep in mind the return trip up the fire road is a scorcher.  – Alexander Walker

Los Robles Open Space     Rosewood Trail     Date: 07/19/2011

This trail starts on Lynn Rd. across from Susan Dr.  You can also access it from Regal Oak Dr.  Park at the end of the cul-de-sac. If you start on Lynn Road you will roam through an oak woodland before you come to the trailhead. We were originally going to hike this during the day, but decided to return in the evening as it looked like a hot uphill trail.  The evening was a good choice for this time of year.  The uphill climb is very gradual.  When we reached the top we had a view of the ocean and the Channel Islands with a beautiful sunset as a backdrop.  It was quite lovely and worth the effort.  This trail is probably loaded with flowers earlier in the spring as there was an abundance of blooming plants just not many blooms.  The most surprising was a few red shanks with flowers.  We don’t usually see them at this low of an elevation.  Other flowers in bloom included:  sticky monkey flower, elderberry in berry, California everlasting, California buckwheat, cliff aster, holly-leaf redberry, horehound, bush sunflower, heart-leaf penstemon and laurel sumac.  – Fred and Nellie

Arroyo Conejo Open Space     Misc. Trails      Date: 07/18/2011

The trailhead is at the west end of Calle Yucca. Take the trailhead down staying left until you come to Conejo Creek.  Turn right.  You will cross the creek several times and your shoes will probably get wet.  We continued on the trail past the water reclamation plant to the Hill Canyon Wetlands.  Walk down the trail alongside the wetlands until you come to a long yellow gate on the right hand side of the trail.  Go around the gate and walk down the creek for a short distance and you will see the Conejo Creek and the creek from Wildwood converge into one.  It’s probably not as exciting as seeing two rivers in the Amazon converge, but I thought it was cool.  There weren’t many flowers in bloom, but there were several edible plants with fruit ready to harvest.  We enjoyed Lemonadeberry (just suck on the fruit and spit it out), holly-leaf red berry (we spit out the seeds) elderberry, and wild celery. There was also some wild grapes but they were still green so we didn’t taste any. In the animal kingdom we saw a very large carp, a yellow striped racer snake, and a tree full of scrub jays,  Other plants that were still in bloom included:  fennel, California everlasting, heart-leaf penstemon, California poppy, toyon, California buckwheat, yucca, horehound, bush sunflower, morning glory, bird beak, vervain, datura, bush mallow, wild rose, prickly lettuce, water plantain, watercress, tree tobacco, caster bean, and virgin’s bower.  – Fred and Nellie

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