What makes for a great wildflower year? Lots of rain is
important, but how much and when? Last winter, November and
December were very wet; then the rain stopped. It turned out to be
one of the worst wildflower years in memory.
What makes for a great wildflower year? Lots of rain is important, but how much and when? Last winter, November and December were very wet; then the rain stopped. It turned out to be one of the worst wildflower years in memory.
What is a mystery to us is well understood by the uncountable seeds lying in wait in the hills, mountains, valleys and deserts. In their hard weatherproof husks, they might hold up for many years until there is just enough rain at just the right times. Then one spring day the weather warms and the hills are cloaked in a spectacular riot of color. I have heard some people say that this will be one of those special springs.
1998 was such a year. One spring weekend that year, two other volunteers and I visited a remote portion of Henry Coe State Park called the Thomas Addition. If you look at a map of Coe Park, the Thomas Addition is a chunk of land connected to the main body of the park at a single point. Since one cannot get to the Thomas Addition without trespassing on neighbor’s land, visitors are not permitted in that part of the park.
Two of us were wildflower students following our guru, Judy Mason. Judy knows a great deal about wildflowers, but more striking than her knowledge is the unaffected delight she takes in them. Over the years that I followed her along trails in the spring, she would frequently squeal with glee when surprised by a flower along the way. Most middle-aged people are too self-conscious to show such childlike joy. Not Judy. The enthusiasm is genuine and can’t be restrained.
The wildflower show that year in the Thomas Addition was beyond gaudy. Flowers we had always been delighted to see in discreet clumps filled large fields with dense displays. Purple Mouse Ears, a small but beautiful flower with Mickey Mouse-like ears, can be seen most years near the Coe visitor center in one-sies and two-sies. We were stunned by a field carpeted with thousands of them. When I unfurled my sleeping bag, I felt like Attila the Hun laying waste to hundreds of yellow Butter and Eggs, but I could not find a gap in the expanse of flowers.
But we had not come to just sightsee. There is a rare flower, the Mt. Hamilton Jewelflower (Streptanthus callistus), which grows only here in the Hamilton Range. The botanist’s bible, the Jepson Manual, notes that this flower is the “most endangered taxon in the genus.” It has only been found in only two or three small populations, one of which was discovered by Judy here in the Thomas Addition of Coe Park. Judy hoped that the small population she had seen before might be in bloom this year, and just maybe there might be more in the area.
Judy found the spot. There on a bare patch of gently sloping ground was a group of low-growing richly reddish-purple flowers. A fifty-foot rope would have encircled the entire group. No shade. No rich topsoil. These fragile flowers were growing with the chaparral on bare rocky soil that seemed to offer nothing that would support such delicate beauty.
During our ramblings that day, we found several new and larger populations of Mt. Hamilton Jewel Flower. Our discoveries probably doubled the known population of this rare flower. Radio calls went out to rangers and wildflower moguls. People rushed out to see. Reports to Sacramento were written.
It was fun to be part of that morsel of discovery, but the lasting memory of that day, that Spring, is the flowers: unexpected species growing in impressive numbers. I hope that all those seeds that have been accumulating and waiting out there, trapped between rocks and nestled in fields, will agree with the predictors: that this is the spring to go for it. This may be the year for a trip to Gorman, Anza-Borrego, Antelope Valley or the Carrizo Plain. If it is, it will also be a year to make a few extra trips to Coe Park and other local wildlands to see the magic in your own backyard.
Ron Erskine is a volunteer at Coe Park. He can be reached via e-mail at ro********@*sn.com.
