Natural History Wanderings

Santa Monica Mts. Recreation area has  a post-fire update on flowers, trails and the impact of the recent fire

What a crazy Spring it has been. We are mostly moved back in after the evacuation during the fire but things are still a bit disorganized. Beyond that everyone has been working on the fire so a lot of our regular business has been put on hold. Safety concerns keep the trails in and near the burn area closed. Although the fire is now contained that is not the same thing as the much more significant “controlled” status. Many areas will remain closed even after that until safety and environmental issues can be fully assessed. Here at Circle X Ranch all of the trails west and north of Yerba Buena are closed and over near Rancho Sierra Vista everything is closed. I’m itching to get out there myself but even Park staff can only enter the burn with a fire escort. Don’t forget that this is not only about your safety, but also that the environment is very fragile right now. It may look like just some burned-out moonscape but how it recovers next year will depend on how we treat it now. Thoughtless footprints through the burn (so very tempting now that everything is wide open and in plain view) can have a negative impact that will last for years. My “tread lightly” solution has always been to look at things, even things close by, with a pair of binoculars. I always buy my binocs with close-focusing characteristics so I can get a close-up view of flowers even when only a few feet off trail. They are a little more expensive than the typical pair but they have helped me avoid needlessly trampling things for years. Not only that they significantly reduce my risk of exposure to things like poison oak, ticks, and rattlesnakes by keeping me on-trail.

I have notes for several flower reports I made before the fire but they seem moot now. As you probably know things remain excruciatingly dry. That said you can find flowers but you will need to use your “Summer” flower hunting skills to find them. The clarkias and other late season flowers are doing OK in some locations but a lot of reliable sites look pretty barren. Other plants we typically expect to still be blooming have prematurely withered. I’ve noticed that many plants that did flower this year did not have enough resources left over to produce seeds. For example, it appears we’ve essentially lost the entire shooting star seed crop at many locations. Here at CXR we did the piece of the backbone trail south of Yerba Buena a couple weeks ago and it had some sparse but nice displays on it (that trail is open at CXR.) There are other sheltered trails worth exploring. Let us all know what else you have been seeing.  ‑ ed.

See older reports at: What’s Blooming.