So many wildflowers! And we have had so little rain this year. From Wright's Beach to Shell Beach, the trail is thick with all kinds of flowers and all at their best—mustard, radish, flax, morning glory, wild strawberry, blackberry, blue bush lupine, checkerbloom, seaside daisy, English daisy, ox-eye daisy, buttercup, goldfields, Indian paintbrush, and many more, including lots of pink Armeria maritima in their native habitat. I propagate these in the rock garden section of the nursery at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. The garden cultivars have better-looking foliage, but the wild blossoms, at least this year, are fatter and pinker. Cow parsnip has completely colonized the hills and bluffs. Blue-eyed grass, which is really more purple than blue, is quite abundant and is a long-time favorite of mine. A real treasure found today is Brodiaea terrestris subsp. terrestris, dwarf brodiaea. It's similar to the Romulea that I found last week out at Pt. Reyes in that the flower is only about an inch and a half wide and has an extremely short stem. It looks like it is sitting right on the ground—and it grows in the middle of the trail.
The day is glorious, starting off misty and cool. Later the clouds drift away and the sea sparkles in the warm sunshine. The drive out to the coast was quite flowery and in and around the town of Bodega Bay I have never seen the Echium candicans (Pride of Madeira) looking so spectacular.
A flower-carpeted bluff.
Dwarf Brodiaea
Blue-eyed grass