Comments on: Figueroa Mountain Spring, 2008

by: NatureShutterbug

Sat, 26 Apr 2008 16:31:47 +0000

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!

by: Sean

Fri, 25 Apr 2008 02:57:30 +0000

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.

by: mon@rch

Tue, 22 Apr 2008 01:14:11 +0000

I love how the colors in the first photo are framed! The oranges are stunning and looks like a great place! Thanks for sharing!

by: Heidi Carlson

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 22:24:20 +0000

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!

by: NatureShutterbug

Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:16:17 +0000

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.

by: Ginny

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 23:20:05 +0000

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!

by: NatureShutterbug

Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:20:43 +0000

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

by: NatureShutterbug

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 19:09:46 +0000

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.

by: Mary Carlson

Sat, 19 Apr 2008 16:51:21 +0000

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.

by: Diane

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 04:54:21 +0000

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!