Visitors 5
Modified 28-Feb-24
Created 29-Jul-21
50 photos
As our world dries out, many flowers disappear. Here are five that bloomed in July, many will continue in August. Plus a bonus flower!
First, I revisit some of our past flowers of the month:
The California Buckeye continues its seasonal progression, sucking nutrients from the leaves, which have finished their photosynthesis for the year, and pumping energy into its precious Buckeye seeds. These will stay on the tree all summer and fall, until just after the first rains prepare the ground for planting. They assure the continued flourishing of the species. (I once called the Buckeye a "remnant species": still here, even after the departure of its co-evolved seed spreaders, the macrofauna of early California including our camels, mastodons, and giant sloths. I now realize that another seed-spreader supplanted these huge animals: the First People here. They have nourished and cultivated our "wild" lands, building California as the Europeans first found it.)
The Soap Plant flowers, after blossoming a single night, produce seeds in groups of four.
The Sticky Monkeyflowers fade. The plants can support climbing vines, such as the Hairy Honeysuckle -- which itself produces bunches of berries, though a few flowers still blossom in the shade beside Corte Madera Creek.
The first "flower of the month" is finished blooming by now. As far as I know, California Indian Pink is only found in one place in Portola Valley now: along Sweet Springs Trail in Portola Valley Ranch. (Helen and I have seen another plant or two along the Blue Oak Trail -- but sadly, they were not there this year. They were close to the trail; we suspect the inconspicuous plants were cavalierly mowed down by the trail clearers.) I have also seen California Indian Pinks at Jasper Ridge (maybe even in that portion of the Ridge in Portola Valley) -- and at Hidden Villa. A perennial, California Indian Pink will continue to greet us each June along Sweet Springs Trail. THANKS to Howard Young and the Town of Portola Valley for carefully avoiding clearing our last stand of these flowers from the trailside here!
Green Everlasting: the flowers last a long time, and the dried "flower" bunch stays much longer. I prefer "Green Everlasting" to its other common name, "California Cudweed".
Toyon flowers grace our hillsides and gardens this month. Red Toyon berries will last all summer and fall, even into the rainy season, providing sustenance to animals and birds. Here are a few photos of our native and migratory birds, feasting on Toyon berries.
Hayfield Tarweed carpets our grassland all summer, its characteristic fragrance redolent of warm days. Leaves and stems are covered with a sticky substance, conserving water in the summer heat. Here are some insect pollinators, including a cute iridescent carpenter bee.
Bonus: I don't think of Mugwort as a flower, but as a fragrant herb, useful for countering exposure to Poison Oak, and even as an ingredient in trail tea. But it is a flowering plant: here are its flowers, out this month. Mugwort (Artemesia douglasiana) is closely related to California Sagebrush (A. californica).
