Tag: santa monica mountains

Quercus agrifolia

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UPDATE 5.6.23: I incorrectly showed the position of the female flowers. See this post.

It promises to be a great year for acorns around here! Most of the coast live oaks are currently sprouting thousands of yellow fingers, male flowers on their long catkins. Their female counterparts are hard to see, but if you look closely you can find them wedged in the angle between leaf and branch.

California’s oak woodlands sustain higher levels of biodiversity than virtually any other terrestrial ecosystem in the state. More than 300 species of birds, reptiles, amphibians and mammals depend on oak woodlands for food and shelter, and that doesn’t count the many hundred species of insects, spiders, mosses, lichens and fungi.

Like so many other habitats, oak woodlands are under severe threat from development and climate change. But for this year, at least, we can look forward to a healthy acorn crop. Yay!

Sisyrinchium bellum

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Pretty blue-eyed grass is actually an iris, not a grass. It’s putting on a good show around here right now. No Chumash uses were recorded for this plant, but the Ohlone used an infusion of the roots and leaves as a cure for indigestion and stomach pain.

Salvia columbariae

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Our local wild chia (Salvia columbariae) is closely related to commercial chia (Salvia hispanica). It was a favoured food of the Chumash and other Native American peoples, being high in both protein and fat. The seeds were gathered in large quantities, stored and traded, then roasted and ground into flour. The seeds were also used medicinally and ceremonially. It is an annual herb, and is flowering now in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Thomomys bottae

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Yesterday morning in the Park, some people found a newborn gopher in the middle of a wide, well-traveled trail and didn’t know what to do with it. The blind, hairless little thing was shorter than an adult thumb. It was way too young to try to rehabilitate, so we advised them to return it close to where it was found, just in case the mama came back for it.

I’ve had the same thing happen myself, with a newborn rabbit. In both cases the mystery was how the baby got to the middle of a bare trail. Was it dropped by a bird of prey? Carried there by its mother?

April 1

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Lots of folks are out enjoying the State Park this weekend. We had 230 through the Visitor Center in four hours yesterday; that’s the most I’ve personally served while on duty there.

The most-asked question was: “Why can’t I get to the M*A*S*H site?” (A: The bridge across the creek was removed at the start of winter to prevent it being destroyed by flood. It’ll be re-installed soon, probably later this month. Come visit again in May!)

red rock canyon

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Bodie is a herding dog, not a hunting dog. So it was very surprising when she sniffed in the grass beside the trail, then suddenly lunged and caught a rodent of some kind. It was bigger than a mouse, but smaller than a gopher, and its tail was shorter than a rat’s but not gopher-like. She ignored my commands to drop it, and crunched for a minute before swallowing it. Ugh! Sorry, little critter!

Cardamine californica

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It was so nice to see the first milkmaids this morning!

Milkmaids (Cardamine californica) are some of the first wildflowers to appear in the Santa Monica Mountains each year, showing up in winter and early spring. This member of the Brassicaceae (Mustard) family likes shady, moist hillsides or stream banks in riparian areas. Each flower is about 12mm in diameter with four white to pink petals. The flower closes its petals in late afternoon as the sun goes down and nods its pedicel before a rain, protecting the pollen. It is perennial—after flowering and setting seed, it dies back to its roots where it goes dormant until next year’s rains awaken it.

I hiked this trail once before, in summer 2016, and had a bit of a heat exhaustion incident. I was alone at the time. I remember feeling very dizzy and nauseated, and crawling into the scant shade of a tree to rest and cool down. Luckily today was perfect hiking weather. No hyperthermia involved.

Canis latrans

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#1 question asked at the Visitor Center (usually preceded by “WHOA!”): “Is it real?”

#2 and #3 questions: “How do you get to the M*A*S*H site / Rock Pool?”

Occasionally I don’t know the answer to a question, which sends me off to do research. Right now I’m learning about trapdoor spiders because of a visitor query. More on that to come …

Piuma Ridge Trail

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I returned to my favourite MCSP trail for the first time in about six months. I wanted to see how it was handling all the rain, and the answer is .. beautifully! The many tributaries are gushing, the mosses are glowing neon, and the manzanitas are blanketing the woodland floor in white blossoms.