Jeanz Favorite Wildflower Photos! (photo-essay)

As much as you all seemed to enjoy my recent "Best Bird Photos" article (if you haven't yet seen it, click here), about our local, Sonoma County, Northern California birds, I thought I'd do a similar article but, instead of birds, I thought you might like seeing the photos I've done of my favorite local wildflowers...

Enjoy!!!

Here's a rather strange, 3-lobe petalled, wildflower that's is very prevalent around Sonoma County in the early spring when everything is still very damp from the winter rains. It's called "Yellow Johnnytuck":

Those daisies you see in the background are a local "protected" species called "Meadowfoam".

Another wildflower you see around Sonoma County a lot, especially here in Cloverdale, is a member of the lily family called "Serrated Onion":

Next we have a very common wildflower that you can find almost everywhere -- even in the freeway median strip! You probably have something very much like it where YOU live -- it's called "blue lupine":

I have a funny story about "lupine"...

I worked many years for a large, wholesale nursery. The owner and his family lived right on the property where the nursery was located and they had two children: A little girl and her younger brother.

Well, during the summer where there wasn't any school for them to go to, they both used to follow me around a lot as I went about my duties taking care of the plants...

One time we'd been sent a sample batch of plants by one of our vendors that we hadn't carried in our inventory up until then called "linaria". Linaria (also called "toadflax") has flowers that look kind of like little, tiny snapdragons.

The owner's daughter (I'll call her "Kathy") was about 7 when she and I passed by the new flats with the blooming linaria in them one day and so we stopped for a moment to admire them.

Then, little Kathy turned to me and said (with the most perfectly modulated pronunciation):

"Pretty little flowers -- they look very much like lupines..."

I just cracked UP because MOST kids that age wouldn't know what a lupine was if one ran up and BIT them! Little Kathy, however, had been raised all of her life around the plants in the nursery and, apparently, she'd been paying attention!

Cute... :o)

Here's a dramatic-colored native wildflower with an equally dramatic name: "Indian Warrior":

Those aren't ferns around the bases of the flowers... That's actually its own foliage! Pretty, huh?

And another common Sonoma County wildflower -- another member of the lily family -- with a very elegant name. It's called "Ithuriel's Spear":

In the moister, more "forest-y" areas of the county, you can find all kinds of "woodland" wildflowers... Here's one of my favorites called "Red Larkspur":

I can just picture some fairy wearing one as a hat, can't you? ;o)

Here's another very pretty flower found in the woods hereabouts -- a member of the "coral bell" family --a "woodland star flower":

I just love its "fringe-y" petals!

The following wildflower is a member of the iris family and it grows all over the hills where I live. It's called "Golden-Eyed (or "Yellow-Eyed") Grass:

It's kind of a misleading name because it's not really a "grass" at all! If you look carefully at the stems, you might recognize that they look very much like little iris stems...

Here's a wildflower that is extremely common here in the hills, too, and has been used in the past for cattle (and other stock animal) feed. Sometimes, in the early to mid-spring, whole hillsides around here turn purple with them! It is a member of the "pea" family called "vetch":

Speaking of "hillsides"... There is a small rise on the other side of the driveway across from my house that, in the early spring, is always covered with this next wildflower -- a member of the "primula" (or "primrose") family. Our local common name is "Mosquito Bills" but you may have something similar where you live called "shooting stars":

Here is a lovely little wildflower that you find in the late spring/early summer growing among the tall, dry grass in these hills. Unfortunately, it happens to possess an extremely ugly name. "Hayfield Tarweed":

I really don't think they did it justice with that awful name, do you?

And here is a little native verbascum that doesn't look like very much when you see it from a distance. This "macro shot" I took of it, though, shows what a very beautiful little flower it really is:

I think it looks like a little, miniature hibiscus! What do you think?

Sonoma County has many gorgeous wildflowers that grow on shrubs or bushes, too. Most of them, however, grow nearer to the coast than where I live. Here is one notable exception. The chocolate-y/burgundy flower of the native "spicebush":

If you crush one of the leaves of the spicebush between your fingers, it releases a very strong scent that smells very much to me like nutmeg...

Well, I hope you enjoyed this look at some of our beautiful, native, Northern Californian, wildflowers...

There are many, MANY more that I haven't had a chance to photograph yet but, rest assured, I'm working on it! ;o)

luv,

jean