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Health & Fitness

Blog: Blooming Now in the Santa Monica Mountains, Early March

Pay attention as you drive, ride, bike, or hike through the mountains. Spring blooming has started.

Besides the ceanothus discussed in my previous post, other things are blooming in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Look for California peony (Paeonia californica) in the chaparral.  These little perennial shrubs are around a foot tall and globular in shape with divided foliage.  The small red flowers usually face the ground and might be overlooked but are worth the effort to bend down and look at this charming flower.

Fuchsia-flowering gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) is one of the showier early spring flowers.  In fact, speciosum means showy.  Look for abundant, red, pendant flowers on small-to-medium sized shrubs with glossy foliage and spiny branches.  This plant is found in chaparral and coastal sage scrub. 

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Groups of milkmaids (Cardamine californica) brighten the shade in oak woodlands.  These plants are around a foot tall and have clusters of white to pinkish, four-petalled flowers.

Prickly phlox grows on rocks.  It rhymes and it is true.  Prickly phlox (Leptodactylon californicum) is a shrub usually less than three feet tall.  It is covered with small, prickly, needle-like leaves, hence the name.  The five-petalled flowers are a shade of pink unlike anything else blooming at this time, making this a plant that can be recognized from a distance.  Look for it in rocky areas of chaparral and coastal sage scrub.  

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Purple nightshade (Solanum xantii) can be found blooming somewhere almost year round.  It is a perennial about two feet high producing many saucer-shaped purple flowers, not unlike small versions of its relative, the petunia.  This is a plant mainly of the chaparral.  

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