Natural History Wanderings

Homestead Valley has a new wildflower update. See photos and maps at February 19, 2020

NEW
– Hazel, a common deciduous shrub in the forest is waking up and the female flowers are very small tassels of bright red.
– Oso berry is blooming with arching white, fragrant flowers on the Ridgewood Rock. Also called Indian plum, this shrub was an important source of food and medicine for native Americans.

Forests
– Bay trees’ yellow clusters of flowers are filling the air with their sweet vanilla scent.
– Fairy bells, low and branching with white bell flowers hanging under the leaves is blooming in forests.
– False lily of the valley with its ladder of pointed leaves and white star flowers is blooming in forests.
– Fetid adder’s tongue, a small lily with distinctive red mottled leaves, is blooming at several locations in the forest along the Homestead Trail.
– Indian warrior’s burgundy plumes are spreading down the hill below 15 on the Homestead Trail.
– Manroot, a vine in the gourd family with large leaves and white flowers is blooming in forests.
– Milkmaids with their white flowers is starting to bloom in the forests.
– Trilium is blooming under bay trees in the forest near the water tank at 6d.

Forest edge
– Arroyo willow is blooming in the gully at Laverne and Reed.
– Pacific hounds tongue with its bright blue flowers on tall stalks with large arrow leaves is blooming at forest edges.
– Woodland strawberry, a common ground cover at forest edges is starting to bloom white.

Meadows
– Checker lily has started blooming with chocolate bells and yellow spots in the meadows below Amaranth.
– Footsteps of spring is blooming in the middle of the trail at 7j below the Homestead Hill.
– Fremont’s deathcamas’s cluster of white star flowers is blooming in the meadow below Amaranth.
– Scotch broom*, one of the most aggressive invasive shrubs in Homestead is starting to bloom with bright yellow pea flowers in meadows.
– Wooly lomatium, in the carrot family, with lacy foliage and white wooly umbels is blooming in meadows up on the Homestead Hill