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Health & Fitness

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

This week will be sunny and dry. It should be great weather for a wildflower walk in the Santa Monica Mountains

Wildflower season progresses and each week more species are coming into bloom. The following is a listing of some I have seen recently.

There are three species of blue-flowered ceanothus in the Santa Monica Mountains.  By far the most common is greenbark ceanothus (Ceanothus spinosus).  It is distinguished from the other species by the green bark on branches and trunk.  The clusters of light blue flowers are slightly fragrant.  Like the other local ceanothus species, this shrub is found in chaparral.

Coast paintbrush (Castilleja affinis) is also known as Indian paintbrush.  The flower clusters look a ragged paintbrush dipped in red paint.  Coast paintbrush is a hemiparasite of California sagebrush, so look for this strikingly bright red flower in coastal sage scrub.  

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Owls clover (Castilleja exserta) is like a pink paintbrush in miniature.  Though it can be a common species in the desert, I personally have never seen a lot of it in the Santa Monica Mountains.  This species gets its name from the fact that each individual mature floret looks like a little owl.  Look for small groups of these in grassland and coastal sage scrub.  

Chocolate lily (Fritillaria biflora) is not common and it is a delight to find the brown, bell-shaped flowers hiding in the grass. Plants usually a foot or less in height though they can be taller in shady areas.  

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Shooting stars (Dodecatheon clevelandii) are another wildflower delight.  The pink petals point backwards, making the flower looks like a comet or shooting star.  The bare flower stalk grows from a basal rosette of leaves and is about a foot tall.  Looks for shooting stars in grassy openings in chaparral and coastal sage scrub.  

Fiddleneck (Amsinkia menziesii) is an annual of grassland habitats.  The flower clusters curl like the end of the neck of a fiddle violin, hence the name.  The yellow flowers are small but usually found in groups of many individuals.  

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