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Page Revised: 2/27/09 |
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Available Site Reviews Backbone Trail Rocky Oaks Circle X Ranch |
Date of Review 2/14. 2/1. 1/18. |
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What's Blooming photo gallery: http://www.researchlearningcenter.com/bloom/bloom.htm |
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The bigpod ceanothus has pretty well
finished up in most places although you can still find individuals with faded
blossoms on them. The same with the
bigberry manzanita and chaparral current.
Some of the blue species of ceanothus are beginning to bloom especially
at the lower elevations. People have
been giving me brief verbal reports but so far there is little get excited
about The recent rains will no doubt
help once the warmer weather kicks in.
Recently I’ve seen coast goldfields, red maids, lupines, popcorn
flowers, nightshades and still a fair crop of shooting stars here and
there. –ed. |
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Backbone Trail |
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Date: 2/14 |
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Today’s hike is the fourth of
the NPS sponsored Backbone Trail hikes in the 2008 – 2009 series. We
will be hiking west to east, one section of the Backbone Trail each month.
The weather was partly cloudy and cool. We started our hike where the
Backbone Trail crosses Encinal Canyon Road. We hiked the trail to the west
(really pretty much a northerly direction for this section), crossing
Mulholland Highway within 1.2 miles and continuing another 2.6 miles to the
Etz Meloy Motorway. This section of trail is entirely on NPS property and the
property ends about a half mile up the Etz Meloy Motorway, at which point we
have to turn around because NPS has not yet acquired the necessary property
to continue. The trail was moist from recent rains and views from the top
were spectacular, enhanced by snow topped mountains to the north and east. Most of the flower activity was just
beginning. There were some left-over Chaparral Current, Wild Cucumber and Big
Pod Ceanothus. Last year we had a second bloom of the Big Pod and I expect
that will happen this year as well. We had to check the veins in the leaves
to be sure the purple flowering Ceanothus was the Greenbark species. Mule
Fat, California Everlasting, Two-Tone Everlasting, Deerweed, Wishbone Bush,
Tree Tobacco and Morning Glory were scattered along the trail. Counting the
“weeds’ like Black Mustard we counted 19 species in bloom. The
section of trail above Mulholland was constructed fairly recently and many of
the flowers that like disturbed soil are beginning to appear. We saw a single
Parry’s Phacelia and young Bleeding Heart plants. Young Cliff Asters
are wide spread. We had two sunflower examples close enough to compare
differences between the Slim Sunflower and Canyon Sunflower. A couple California Fuschia, covered with
newly forming galls looked very strange.
Rating: poor. – B.
Elliott & R. Waycott |
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Rocky Oaks |
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Date: 2/1 |
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Blooms are only fair here now, but
many plants are in bud. This small site is worth seeing now and returning again
to watch the progress of the blooming season. We saw a few big berry
Manzanita with blooms going to berries, lots of red berries on the toyon. In
the pond were coots and ducks (shovelers). Tree
frogs were croaking. Many different types of lichen are visible. The only masses of blooms were on the
three species of white flowered ceanothus just about everywhere. It’s
worth going to practice your identification skills on the ceanothus. All their white flowers are similar. Big
pod ceanothus (megacarpus) has alternate leaves. Hoary-leaved ceanothus
(crassifolius) and buck-brush ceanothus (cuneatus) both have opposite leaves.
Both have thicker leaves then big pod. Both have corky stipules near the leaf
stems. Hoary-leaved has rounder leaves with occasional jagged teeth. These
leaves are very white (hoary) wooly on the underside. Buck-brush (cuneatus)
has wedge-shaped (cuneate) leaves with the narrow
part near the stem. Buck-brush can also be finely wooly on the underside. Trails on the western side of the
site have more flowers. – S. Braden & J. Gillooly |
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Circle X Ranch |
Grotto
Trail. |
Date: 1/18 |
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We hiked down to the grotto last
weekend but there was not much in the way of flowers to report about. We saw a total of twenty different species
in bloom and that included all the weedy things we encountered and several
that were actually seen as we hunted around off-trail. Without exception everything we saw blooming
was a perennial and none had started to bloom in any abundance yet. The bigpod ceanothus was just barely
beginning to bloom on the 18th, but now on the 24th it
looks like most of the population has started to bloom. So far the hills have only a faint blush of
white on them. It will be interesting
to see how they do this year given the horrible stress they were under last
year. –ed. |
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Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area 401 West
Hillcrest Drive 805-370-2301 |
If you
would like to contribute to the wildflower report: e-mail: or phone
Tony at 310-457-6408 |
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