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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I was heading to a party in Topanga last weekend, to celebrate my friend Hilton finishing his PhD (go, Hilton!!!), and the thought of not stopping somewhere first for a quick hike was killing me. So we headed to Red Rocks Canyon Park, which has a few awesome in-and-out hikes with glorious views, off of Old Topanga Canyon Rd. There are tons of beautiful rock formations, but the reddest ones are actually right at the entrance to the park, which feels like its in someone's front yard-- you have to follow a very narrow dirt road to get to the park, which meanders directly next to mansions and old shack-like houses. You definitely feel like you are trespassing, but it does make the park even more interesting once you find it. Not much was flowering, but Sam spotted a lone, lovely prickly phlox flower in the rocks, and there were quite a lot of wild cucumber vines in bloom and in fruit. They look invasive but are actually native (yay), but also apparently poisonous (boo). We also spotted some golden yarrow, hoary leaved Ceanothus blooms, and a Hollyleaf Cherry tree with some flowers. There were also a delightful smattering of ferns, and I was able to look up their species' names with the always amazing Santa Monica Mountains wildflower/plant finder page. Luckily, the nature didn't stop once we got to the party, and we got to see some very aggressive hummingbirds duke it out at the feeders. I know some studies on nectar bats in Arizona have shown that these nectarivores are actually quite dependent on the sugar water people put out in hummingbird feeders; wonder how dependent these guys are on this "unnatural" food source. |
AuthorI like nature! And hiking, and taking pictures, especially of nature. Archives
September 2014
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