Figueroa Mountain Spring, 2008
“I don’t want to leave and go home”, said one of the trip participants after a wonderful, interesting SBBG trip to Figueroa Mountain. It is not an uncommon feeling after each trip to the mountain — which I have visited many times this year (along with other areas). This year has more free time and it is also a good time to visit outlying areas before the price of gasoline becomes prohibitive.
(Tufted Poppies, Sky Lupine - March 18, 2008)
In my mind’s eye, Figueroa mountain consists of many garden-like areas interspered between woodlands where different flowers bloom in a variety of mixes (and times). During the months of March and April, California poppies bloom in large numbers in many of the floral areas. California poppies can be seen with goldfields; tufted California poppies often grow with sky lupine, bush lupine, phacelia, etc. There are two types of poppies on Figueroa - California Poppies and Tufted California Poppies. The latter range from dark orange to bright yellow. Thus, more photos of poppies were taken than any other species in this year’s collection, and have been put into a separate slideshow.
(California Poppy with collar - April 07, 2008)
(Tufted California Poppy without collars - April 10, 2008)
(Tufted California Poppy without collars - April 13, 2008)
There are a large number of other plants on Figueroa that begin flowering in early spring at the bottom of the mountain. As spring progresses, the same species sometimes, and different species usually, start flowering at progressively higher areas on the mountain. When lupine were blooming en masse on a bank just past the ranger station, flowerless lupine were seen at Pino Alto. Shooting stars seemed to have flowered all over the mountain at all heights and in areas that receive different amounts of sun. The first shooting star bloom was seen on February 10th, even though leaves were seen as early as November 24 last year.
(California Gilia - March 18, 2008)
(Little Gilia - April 10, 2008)
(Volcanic Gilia - April 10, 2008)
(Globe Gilia - April 10, 2008)
While the visits to Figueroa Mountain are generally to see the massive flower displays — poppies, lupine and goldflields — some of my trips this year were even more interesting because of a number of plants I had not seen before. I photographed four types of Gilia. One of them, Volcanc Gilia, was seen in very few numbers in the rocky area opposite the first picnic area. After these had disappeared, I encountered the same species higher up on the mountain a couple weeks later - some scattered on what I call Wallflower Rocky Hill and many, many more sharing space in an area where Tidy Tips and Linanthus grow in large numbers.
(California Suncup - April 13, 2008)
I visited Sunset Valley Road for the first time on April 13th, and discovered another new world of flora in a different habitat type. In a small area, three rather interesting yellow flowers, two of them from the Evening Primrose family, and the third a usual fire follower (whispering bells), were discovered. It seems to be warmer along this road than higher up on Figueroa Mountain, and Parry’s Larkspur was seen close to Nira campground.
Slideshows (It is probably a good idea to click the “Fast” button because of the number of photos. Also, moving the mouse over the picture displays the controls - clicking the “i” shows picture titles.)
Those flower pictures are so beautiful. Whispering bells. Tony and I were wondering what they were. We saw the little yellow cup-shaped flowers on the high part of Aliso trail overlooking the river. We had never seen them before and wondered what they were. Now I know. Too bad I didn’t have a camera when I saw them. Thank you!
April 18th, 2008 | #
Lynn, I learn so much from you every time I visit. But I have a few questions, if you don’t mind. First of all, I didn’t know there are two kinds of CA poppies, or are there more? Are all “tufted” poppies known to be w/o collars? It’s already amazing how the colors (hues) can be different, too. Can one distinguish the difference between the collared and “uncollared” from a distance, or do we have to be close enough to see which ones they are? My daughter visited Carrizo Plain recently. Would those poppies have been tufted? And all those different types of Gilia! Wow! Can all four of these types also be found in northern or central California? I’m assuming that the volcanic gilia could be found on the eastern side of the Sierras. And one last question, how large of a plant is CA suncup, and what areas of CA can it be found? That is such a beautiful flower.
April 19th, 2008 | #
Hi Diane- I was on that road because of your directions - but stopped when I got to the stream-crossing part - because I was not equipped to deal with it. I hope to try again sometime.
Hi Mary - A lot of questions, so much so, that I think I’ll write a post about some of the things I have learned. In the meantime, the California Poppies have the little red collar under the flower; Tufted Poppies do not.
April 19th, 2008 | #
Hi again Mary, I am snowed under with work this weekend - so I won’t be posting anything for at least another week. In the meantime, here is one of my tricks - once you have the scientific name of a plant, type the name followed by jepson into google - eg “Camissonia californica jepson”
The page at the link below comes up. You can get all sorts of information from the Jepson Manual pages - where the plant can be found; size; color, etc.
http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/get_JM_treatment.pl?5263,5264,5280
April 20th, 2008 | #
I really enjoyed the pix, and like others, I seem to have been uninformed about the poppies with and without collars - I’m interested to check that out further. I’m planning a trip out to Antelope, and I believe those are tufted, no?
And really liked the various forms of Gilia. Good job!
April 20th, 2008 | #
Ginny, I don’t know - but I think at least the standard California Poppy would be there. The Jepson manual states that there are 12 species of poppy in California. In Calphotos, they have photos for all of these species:
Eschscholzia caespitosa (Tufted Poppy)
Eschscholzia californica (California Poppy)
Eschscholzia californica ssp. mexicana
Eschscholzia glyptoperma
Eschscholzia glyptosperma
Eschscholzia hypecoides
Eschscholzia lemmonii
Eschscholzia lemmonii ssp. kernensis
Eschscholzia lobbii
Eschscholzia mexicana
Eschscholzia minutiflora
Eschscholzia minutiflora ssp. covillei
Eschscholzia minutiflora var. twisselmannii
Eschscholzia parishii
Eschscholzia ramosa
I googled for a plant list for Antelope Valley, but did not find anything. It would be interesting to ask when you go there.
April 21st, 2008 | #
Hi NatureShutterbug! I’m Red, Mary Carlson’s daughter. Thank you for the jepson tip… I have been using CalFlora.org and I find a lot of location data there and images, but I just noticed now that you mentioned their name that they link to the Jepson manual.
Also, in the last week of March I was at Antelope Valley… all the pictures I took had poppies with collars on them, so I guess they were the California Poppy. Also, that’s the only poppy they mentioned in their pamphlet. They list 14 other flowers that one is likely to see there. In the visitor’s center, they did not have a list of flora or fauna like I’ve seen in other places. I could have asked at the counter, but it was a madhouse, so I didn’t bother.
And I’m so glad you posted a globe gilia… now i know what that blue flower is growing in the backyard with the poppies!
April 21st, 2008 | #
I love how the colors in the first photo are framed! The oranges are stunning and looks like a great place! Thanks for sharing!
April 22nd, 2008 | #
Hi Lynn,
Thanks for directing me to your site. I never noticed whether poppies had collars or not… I will definitely pay attention to this on my next outing.
April 25th, 2008 | #
Hi Heidi,
Sorry I took so long to approve your message. Once you are approved, then messages are posted automatically. (It took two software packages to handle the spam that arrives at blogs - sometimes 300 a day.)
I am completely consumed by a task that has to be done by May 4, working weekends, etc. So I skipped a few days looking at incoming messages.
I hope to post more comprehensive replies early May.
Thanks!
April 26th, 2008 | #