Natural History Wanderings

The Santa Monica Mts. National Recreation Area reports on its What’s Blooming page

Topanga Canyon State Park    Musch Trail 5/4/16

Walking this trail right now is a magical experience. We left from Trippet Ranch and walked The Musch Trail to the fire road that connects to Eagle Rock, turned right and came back on the fire road, making it a loop. The flowers on this trail are in absolute peak bloom. On this trail you continually move from grasslands to oak woodland to chaparral. In the grasslands you find Catalina mariposa lilies, wild brodiaea, golden star lilies, blue eyed grass and owl clover, among others, hiding in the tall grasses. In the oak woodland there are hummingbird sage, Indian pinks and heart leaf penstemon. But it is the chaparral areas that are most rewarding, both for the shear quantity of flowers, entire hillsides covered in flowers, and for some especially beautiful and, to me, unusual ones. We came upon a stand of rose snapdragons that was stunning. The brilliant notable penstemon makes appearances here and there along the trail and the lovely whispering bells border the trail in many places. This is the time to explore this trail! It is a bit of a steep climb and the chaparral sections are, by definition, exposed, so it is best not to do this one at midday, but even then it would be worth it

Zumba Canyon  Backbone Trail  4/29/16

Definitely the best wildflower display I’ve seen locally this year. Among the showy plants were canyon sunflower, large-flowered phaceila, Parry’s phacelia, speckled clarkia, elegant clarkia, bush monkeyflower, and California wild rose. Tiny-flowered plants included pygmy madia, phlox-leaved bedstraw (pine mat), wild celery/parsley, and the non-native bur-chervil.