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Updated March 15th
Available Reviews
Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space
Malibu Creek State Park
Circle X Ranch
Date of Review
3/8.
3/8.
2/8.

Quick Links:
Wildflowers of the Santa Monica Mountains - Photos of 1000 SMM plants.
Archive - Previous “What's Blooming” reports.
Outdoors - The Calendar of Events for the Santa Monica Mountains NRA.
Wildflowers Facebook - A place where people can share about flowers.
SMM WildFlowers - The Park's popular wildflower app for the iPhone/iPad.

         The recent rain has eased the drought somewhat but it is still a long way from being over. Just now the wind picked up a huge cloud of dust from the dirt parking lot here, something you would never see in a more typical March. The ground was dry as a bone and much of the water has disappeared into that vacuum literally without a trace. Similarly, the creeks are not running yet, another sign that a mere 6” of rain does end a severe drought. People are reporting that the rain has triggered some of the perennials into flower. You might check the coast for the giant coreopsis, and some of the ground flowers in the meadows have picked up as well, but nothing spectacular yet. It will be weeks before we can hope to see much from of the annuals and I expect that most of them will require more rain than we have received so far. Keep your fingers crossed and let me know what you see.  ‑ ed.





Las Virgenes Canyon Open Space
03/08/14
         Chris and I hiked six miles in the Upper Las Virgenes Open Space Preserve today hoping that things might be popping up a week after the rain. No such luck. The sum total of our flower sightings were elderberry blossoms (a couple dozen), Indian paintbrush (2) and bush mallow (1 single blossom at the very top of a bush). So that was discouraging. However it was nice to see the new leaves on the valley oaks. We also saw our first rattlesnake of the season, lots of hawks and a coyote.  ‑ Dorothy Steinicke 


Malibu Creek State Park
Backbone Trail
03/08/14
         Today’s hike was the fifth leg of the 2014 National Park Service Backbone Trail Hike. We are hiking west to east covering about two segments per month. Today we hiked from the Latigo Trailhead to the Tapia Trailhead in Malibu Creek State Park. The effects of the drought continue to be very evident. Our list of flowers is very short and most of these were very sparse. Deer weed, bush poppy, dove lupine, bush lupine, wild cucumber, buckwheat, mustard, monkeyflower, and California everlasting.  ‑ Ralph and others 


Circle X Ranch
Backbone Trail
02/08/14
         Today’s hike was the third leg of the 2014 National Park Service Backbone Trail Hike. We are hiking west to east covering about two segments per month. Today we hiked from the Mishe Mokwa trailhead at Circle X Ranch to Encinal Road. The effects of the drought continue to be very evident. Our list of flowers is very short and most of these were very sparse. Deer weed, slender sunflower, coyote bush, telegraph weed, mule fat, wild cucumber, chaparral currant, California everlasting, felt-leaf everlasting.  ‑ Ralph and others 




Contact Information:

Santa Monica Mountains NRA
401 West Hillcrest Drive
Thousand Oaks, CA 91360
805-370-2301
www.nps.gov/samo

If you would like to contribute a wildflower
report you can e-mail the editor at:
Tony[underscore]Valois@nps.gov
or phone Tony at the CXR office 310-457-6408



What's Blooming
on the web at
www.smmflowers.org/whatsblooming

or go to

www.nps.gov/samo
click on "Things to Do"
and "Look for Wildflowers"


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