Natural History Wanderings

A new Antelope Valley wildflower bloom update by Mike Powell on 3-21-12 at  Latest Poppy Reserve Research Field Notes and Observations.

First, and foremost, for only 3 inches of total rainfall this winter, there are surprising numbers of poppy plants this year.  There are even a few small areas that are starting to fill in for a more generalized color.  There are a few larger plants with 3 and 4 blossoms open; especially the perennial poppies but also annuals.  Other plants have only one open blossom but some had buds and I saw a few caps so the blossoms should be getting better and there are a large number of small plants that dont have signs of blooming yet.  It kind of reminded me of mid-February in a more typical year.   In fact, everything is surprisingly brown with only the barest tint of isolated greening.  As icing on the cake, the grasses havent started growing in most areas so the poppies stand out and are not hidden among the taller, overwhelming grasses.  Fiddlenecks are also doing pretty well this winter and the mostly small plants are blooming also.  At least so far, this not going to be a goldfield year; mostly single, isolated blossoms but did find a couple of small patches with clusters of blossoms.  Most of the blossoms appeared to be already fading.  No signs of yellowing on the flanks of Fairmont Butte.  The perennial bush lupine are putting on a good display but I found only one blossom of the pygmy-leaved lupine; the same as my last visit.  Didnt see any red maids, normally an early season blooming species, or fringe pods.  Loco weed is still blooming but appeared to be past its peak.  Yesterday I found some of the tiny forget-me-nots white blossoms as well as blossoms open on one of the few, scattered wild cucumber plants growing on the Reserve.  I didnt see any signs that the Joshua trees outside the Visitor Center are about to bloom.

I think this years poppies point out the equal importance of how the rain comes and not just total seasonal rainfall.  The three inches of this winters rainfall, before last weekends additional rain, is one of the driest in the last 15 years for which I have detail rainfall data.  The winter of 2001/2002 also had only three inches of rainfall and the long time volunteers say that 2002 was a total bust of a season but, during that winter, the rain came in many small rainstorms.  Although there were a number of small storms this winter, there were also several storms that deposited 0.4 to 0.6 inches of rainfall; plus the 0.9 inch rainfall storm in September.  Based on our observations, those 1/2 inch storms are about the lower limit of when there is any  triggered seed germination.  It seems each of those storms probably did trigger some modest seed germination which accumulated into a reasonable inventory of growing plants.

With only three inches of total rainfall, the soil has to be very dry; not much water for the plants to draw on to keep growing.  In February, it flipped from a La Nina condition almost always resulting in dry winters to El Nino condition mostly wetter winters so maybe last weekends storm and this weekends forecast storm are the first of a few last season storms that will add to the soils water bank and extend and improve this springs wildflower season.