The drive out to Pt. Reyes National Seashore is lovely, especially Limantour Road, lined with crowds of forget-me-nots, lotus, seep-spring monkeyflower, ceanothus, and cow parsnip. I hope the trails will be just as flowery.
The day starts off windy and cool, but as I go inland and up into the forest, it becomes calmer and warmer. This must the Year of Cow Parsnip because these tall white wildflowers are all over the hills. The first part of Bayview Trail is overgrown and lush with grasses and ferns. There seem to be more thimbleberry and salmonberry flowers than in most years. And this is the best month for ceanothus, it's all over the hills—dark blue, medium blue, light blue, and almost white, giving out a sweet, delicate fragrance. In places the branches hang over the trail like a tunnel.
I'm glad I wore long pants because stinging nettle is often draped across the trail. I find the white form of nightshade, as well as aquilegia and sanicle—more than sixty different wildflowers in all. Most species occur in hordes, everything looks fat and happy. I pass many lovely "gardens." Here is one of yellow buttercups, blue-eyed grass, and red paintbrush. A little farther up, blue flax and red sorrel make a great color combination. Then there's gatherings of purple iris, white cow parsnip, and yellow buttercups. High up in the woods I discover lots of Calochortus tolmei, "pussy ears," the diminutive, fuzzy, white and lavender member of the lily family that I usually see out by the beach on windy bluffs.
Near the top of the ridge I can see what's happened to the Bishop pine forest since the devastating Mount Vision Fire of 1995. Bishop pine cones don't open until they have come in contact with fire, so while the mature forest was ruined, thousands of seedlings thrived. Many of the new trees are still only about two inches in diameter and growing quite close together. Many are dying because they are shaded out by the faster growers. The twenty- or thirty-foot-tall tops are green, but at eye level it's mostly dead brown needles on brown branches.
Fire Lane Trail, at its junction with Sky Trail, is only ten to twelve inches wide. The forget-me-nots lining the path by the thousands brush up against my legs. They form a nice contrast with the red salmonberry flowers. Farther along there's tons of ceanothus bushes twenty feet high hugging the trail. The ground along some stretches is covered with what looks like blue cornmeal—millions of tiny ceanothus blossoms.
At the few open places, I can look out over the ravines and see more ceanothus flowing down the hillsides. You couldn't find a display anything like this in a botanical garden. Purple, iris, yellow buttercups, and cow parsnips round out the color scheme.
I see a number of adult quail, no babies yet. A chickadee flits across the path with a beak full of nesting material; it looks furry.
I have decided that the ceanothus is the star of the day, and the display is truly wonderful, but when I get down to the junction of Fire Lane and Laguna Trails I come upon a tiny but spectacular surprise: Romulea rosea. This little immigrant from South Africa has made itself perfectly at home along many roadsides and trails in California. In Australia it is considered an invasive weed, but it could never become that here because it grows only in disturbed places where it gets walked on, driven over, and stamped down by hooves. Still it survives in all its tiny beauty. The flowers are pink, about one and a half inches across, and have very short stems. The blossoms look like they have popped up right out of the ground. I usually find them in spring along this part of the trail, but this year they are legion. I have never seen so many. They are my favorites of the day.
Ceanothus along Bayview Trail
Blackberry blossoms have never looked lovelier.
Along Fire Lane Trail.
Romulea rosea
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