Daily Walks 4

Here is something that you seldom see. The remains of the old pilings from the previous pier in O'side. Usually they are buried under the sand.

A very photogenic gull.

Kelli,
This photo is for you, not the dead crab, but rather the sand around it. It shows a lot of the smalls grains of minerals that make up the beach here. Truly when the sun hits the iron pyrite, just so, it's golden.
Everyone else can enjoy looking at the dead crab if they want to. LOL!

Two more sunset photos finish off a beautiful day.
I really like how the clouds collect and diffuse the light!

Last one for that night. Always changing lighting.

Pictures from today's wildflower walk.

bush poppy (Some of you might know this as tree poppy.)

The wild walnuts are starting to leaf out.

Ceanothus spinosus

crimson pitcher sage

coastal wood fern

California peony

Purple nightshade is everywhere.

This tiny thing is called eucrypta.

Beautiful photos, Kelli! Love that poppy.

The while ceanothus is MY personal fave....!

The ocean and flowers...great tour guys!

Thanks!

Kelli, are you sure that is C. spinosus? Las Pilitas says spinosus is light blue. I looked it up because I wondered why we had C. rigidus Snowball, a northern plant, which doesn't have those beautiful big groups of flowers. Must have been some reason the consultant recommended it, but he usually went for local species.

I'm terrible at identifying plants, but could it be C. megacarpus? I would like to have some more white growing around here.

http://www.laspilitas.com/groups/ceanothus/southern_california_lilacs/Ceanothus_megacarpus.jpg

My field guide says that C. spinosus has flower colors that range from white to blue. We seem to have the full range down here but there were none of the darker blues where we were yesterday. The plants have the green stems like C. spinosus, also. C. megacarpus has larger individual flowers but smaller clusters and they have no tint of blue at all, except that the centers are a dark purple/blue. Megacarpus is just about done blooming around here and spinosus is getting started. I think we have 5 or 6 ceanothus species around here, but most are megacarpus and spinosus.

I have the worst time getting a picture of these that is not washed out, but here is one that shows more blue.

Not so great a picture, but the buds are more blue than the open flowers, at least in this location.

Like I said, I'm terrible at IDs! Will have to look at both of those and try to get one.

Good show Kelli, thanks for sharing those gorgeous wildflowers with us. As usual, I'm running behind on my posting.
I guess that's the problem with having a life and a garden. Life keeps taking me away from my garden! LOL!
Kelli, you know my fave is those CA Peony's. Just gorgeous! Keep up the great photos from your walks.
Have you had a chance to check back on that Chocolate Lily?
DH didn't believe me, so I had to show him your photo. Now he'll be looking for it. : - )
Life/chores call.
More soon.
WIB,
SW

That place where we went on Saturday was like the CA peony capitol of the universe. I never saw so many before. Some were blooming and some were done.

We haven't gone back to the chocolate lily place, but here is a picture from another year, and probably the same plant.

This is sticky monkeyflower. The Santa Monica Mountains form is pale orange. There are some in the Simi Hills that are rust-colored. This one is kind of intermediate.

Stinging lupine is a fire-follower. This area burned in 2008. As for the stinging part - I got up the courage to touch some (leaves, stems, and seed pods) and they did not sting. Maybe if you walked through a field of them for a half hour, I don't know.

sun-cup

wild cucumber

ring-necked snake

Cool looking snake, Kelli. Monkey flowers are one of my faves - we have the pale yellow, bright yellow, and pale red. They really like the edge of the pond and we just let them pop up where they can. Wish they would do that more!

We've had a wild cucumber growing in one our pine trees every spring, but now it is spreading all over the place and we'll have to keep an eye on it. It does seem to die back as soon as the weather heats up, thank goodness. It is a pretty thing, too.

I was a busy girl today, and I went to get some photos, and am thinking of trying to transplant some of our native lupine that grows by the road side. The road crew will come in before they set seed and kill them. They are the last stand growing in our area and I'm trying to save some before they develop the land they grow on.
No one will care, and if I am successful it'll preserve more of our native wildflowers. : - )
Here is one group.

You can see they grow right next to the road intermixed with fiddleneck, and the oat hay.

Kelli,
Is this the same kind you have? Here is a close up showing the leaves too. BTW, that ground is as hard as cement.

These tiny white flowers (unknown) grow here and there throughout our valley.

I'm not sure what these are either, but we used to have fields full of these purple and white blooms. The B.flys really liked them and now most of them are gone because of new houses.
They sort of resemble wild mustard, well the leaves do.

As you can see, despite the wind, the flowers are quite different from the mustard plants.

Little Pink Maids. : - )

CA Poppies growing along a fence off a dirt road. Not planted there, but the owner likes 'em, and let's them live. Haven't spotted any that I might have planted yet, but I haven't given up hope.

CA Live Oak pollen sacks. Scary if you have allergies like me, to them. The pine has set pollen sacks too.

Sun cups? That is what these are called? Clothespin is for scale.

A close up. I really love these guys, but never knew what to call them. Sun Cups, thanks Kelli!