Ok, I think I might have just had the best flower day EVER. I can't believe I had never been to the Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve before!!! Its amazing, a truly beautiful place. The poppies were probably at their peak a week ago, but there were still so many hyper-saturated orange petals fluttering in the wind, it was dazzling. So much orange! Its like a burst of beta carotene burning straight through your retinas into your brain. But in a wonderful way :) The Reserve was pretty packed, which is kind of great-- I love when people are interested in nature, and engaging in funny things like flower tourism. To be clear, I am not just a poppy fanatic, I am a general wildflower fanatic. So we took a meandering path to get to the Reserve, winding along San Francisquito Canyon, to see a variety of blooms. This area is apparently infamous for the St. Francis dam disaster, which killed 600 people in 1928. But it also has some great blankets of purple lupines right now, and pretty but painful poodle-dog bush (immediate contact dermatitis if you touch the leaves). And blooming yuccas! Also around the Reserve, there were lots of other awesome species blooming: Goldfields, Lacy Phacelia, Tidy Tips, Fiddlenecks, and Douglas Locoweed. Check out the pics below for scientific names. We drove home a different way, on Highway 14, and stopped at Placerita Canyon Nature Center, which is another hidden gem in the area. I was tired and lazy, so asked the woman at the gift store where to find wildflowers. She didn't think there were too many, but suggested the "Ecology" trail… and it was packed with lovely flower surprises. I found an elegant Clarkia (Clarkia unguiculata, to the left), a flower I have never seen before, and one that has always intrigued me with its super-extended anthers. It looks like a work of art! Also blooming (and pictured below): black sage, woolly blue curls, scarlet bugler, wishbone bush, holly-leaved cherry, monkey flower, and another Phacelia species.
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Yesterday, I went hiking with a group of friends around Switzer Falls, in the Angeles National Forest. We saw snow! At the tops of the mountains, but still exciting to a chica living in Southern CA. We took the trail through Bear Canyon, which follows a stream and has lovely riparian scenery. A botanist friend was along, and showed us we could eat "miner's lettuce" (Claytonia perfoliata), a little fleshy plant growing along the shady damp river banks. Apparently this is a staple in the urban foraging lifestyle, and grows over a large distribution of North America. Some other cool items we saw were the edible if not tasty "witch's butter" (Tremelia aurantia), a fungal parasite that feeds off of another fungal parasite, the definitely inedible "hairy turkey tail" fungus (Stereum hirsutum), which lives and eats decaying logs. What a fun fungal feeding microcosm we found!
One of the common plants we saw flowering was the California bay laurel (Umbellularia californica), whose leaves are strongly aromatic, and are used in cooking (although the chemical in the leaves also causes headaches in some people). Coincidentally, some urban foragers also like to eat the bay nuts of this tree. It seems there are all sorts of little treats in this forest for the adventurous forager. |
AuthorI like nature! And hiking, and taking pictures, especially of nature. Archives
September 2014
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