Anza-Borrego Desert Wildflowers: Bloom report



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Data are collected following the hiked path shown below and includes the immediate area.
One fertile flower (male or female), is all it takes to count a species in bloom.

We try to visit a lot of different areas, but areas with a better bloom may be visited more often.
It makes a huge difference if the bloom count is from a very dry badlands area, or from a place with a good rainfall or along a creek.

The data in the graph are averaged out over a couple of days, to show the actual daily bloom count in the graph, click on the legend on the right until only one is active (black).
With only one selected bars will pop up representing the daily bloom count.


Tom Chester made a couple of great pages with more specific data: Tom Chester bloom reports

The 2023-2024 bloom report:

2024 Bloom

Bloom was normal or below normal for most of the desert.
Above normal for Coyote Canyon, especially along Henderson Canyon Road and Clark Dry Lake.

May/22/2024 Lake Henshaw

 A trip to the northern part of Lake Henshaw, bloom around the lake is very low.

Temperature: 52-68, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Very low


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May/21/2024 Cuyamaca Peak from campground

 The goal today was to find Heuchera rubescens | Pink Alumroot and Prunus emarginata | Bitter Cherry in bloom.
We started at the campground to get the fastest way to the saddle just before the summit.
Having found the two target plants in bloom, we skipped the summit as we had more to find.

We left on the rather rocky Conejos Trail.
Next stop was Moehringia macrophylla | Largeleaf sandwort and we picked the perfect time as we found many blooming plants.
We did not find our next target, Erythranthe breweri, but everything is late this year.

At Azalea Spring we hiked back the shortest way, taking the Azalea Glen Road to the campground.
With all the searching, our hike was almost 6 hours.

The area is completely white from the Ceanothus palmeri | Palmer Ceanothus, it's almost a monoculture, they removed all the plants from one section, but everything is just as it was before, a wasted effort.
What happened after they removed all the plants was the return of the fire followers, stirring up the soil had that effect.

Temperature: 64, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Better than expected


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May/20/2024 Wilderness Gardens Preserve

 It's windy in town, so this looked like a perfect spot, sheltered by mountains.

The goal today was to find a few plants in bloom and that worked for the most part, we found Dudleya edulis and Keckiella cordifolia in bloom.
We even added more new plants to our list than expected, a total of four.
Reaching 1400+ plants and 6.6% of the total in the iNaturalist project San Diego County Plant Atlas, 1400 is without counting the many varieties and subspecies.

Temperature: 70, cloudy at first, sunny soon after our start, almost no wind.

Bloom: Moderate


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May/18/2024 Santa Ysabel East Loop

 The first part, to the Kanaka, is mostly boring with lots of non-native tall grasses.
When there is no grass, Trifolium hirtum | Rose Clover is the main flowering plant.

Good Collinsia heterophylla | Purple Chinese Houses and Calochortus albus | White Fairy Lantern.

The small plants: various tiny Juncus | rushes and Chorizanthe polygonoides longispina | long-spined spineflower.
More visible in good numbers are the blooming Scleranthus annuus annuus | Annual knawel and the much larger Erythranthe guttata | Common monkeyflower.

Perhaps the best find is blooming Hydrocotyle ranunculoides | Floating Marsh Pennywort and Rubus armeniacus | Himalayan Blackberry.

Temperature: 64-69, sunny, sometimes a light breeze.

Bloom: Moderate


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May/17/2024 Volcan Mountain

 This hike has been on our list for years, now we finally had time to hike to the top.
There are lots of Gilia capitata abrotanifolia | Globe Gilia near the end of bloom, some fields of Leptosiphon parviflorus, Common Linanthus and good patches of Platystemon californicus | Creamcups closer to the summit.
It was surprisingly cold on the ridge near the summit, with near 100 degrees at Borrego Springs.

Temperature: 65-74, sunny, sometimes a light breeze.

Bloom: Moderate


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May/16/2024 Chihuahua Creek - Cooper Canyon loop

 We noticed observations of Chorizanthe xanti xanti | Pinyon spineflower, but that area is closed to the public.
It took some time to devise a plan to get close to the plants legally.
Finally we found a route and we found 100+ plants in bloom when we were going cross country in not too dense chaparral.

Along our route we found a record number of 1000+ blooming Nemacladus (longiflorus) longiflorus | Long flowered threadplant.
At one point we were able to see the plants from over 20 meter away, that is very unusual for such a small plant.

Best blooming plant by far Eriophyllum confertiflorum confertiflorum | Golden yarrow together with Acmispon glaber brevialatus | Shortwing deerweed.
Or maybe it were the Nemacladus longiflorus.

We searched for a long time and finally found Tamarix hohenackeri, which was brought to our attention by Jon Rebman.

The hike at 6 1/2 hours was a bit too long, but interesting at times.

Temperature: 64-70, sunny, sometimes a pleasant breeze.

Bloom: Mostly perennials


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May/14/2024 Otay Mountains

 Or first destination, the southern end of the Otay Mountain Truck Trail, there was a small chance that we could enter here.
No chance, this is too close to the Mexican border and closed by the Border Patrol.

Our first stop by car to the known Dudleya variegata | Variegated liveforever location to find them in bloom and they were blooming, easy to find clusters of yellow flowers.
This was an area with many other unexpected great finds, like a huge field of Downingia cuspidata | Toothed calicoflower.
And along the dirt road the gorgeous blooming Romneya trichocalyx | Hairy Matilija Poppy.

Next stop, a repeat of our previous loop hike here.
It's a bit of a climb, but the reward is many new plants like fields of Navarretia hamata leptantha.
A steep detour into a canyon with a suspected Fremontodendron mexicanum, Mexican flannelbush, and we hope we found two of them here, in bloom no less.

On one side of a valley we found the rather rare Calochortus dunnii | Dunn's Mariposa Lily and on the other side the very common Calochortus splendens | Splendid Mariposa Lily.

The bad thing here is the immigrant problem, the amount of trash everywhere is huge and the number of trails is staggering.

The next stop was the other end of the Otay Mountain Truck Trail that we drove a few weeks ago, unfortunately the fence has been rebuilt and we could not get in here.
We drove to another end of the Otay Mountain Truck Trail and here we could finally enter and see the reason for our trip: blooming Diplacus clevelandii | Cleveland's Bush Monkeyflower.

Temperature: 50-70, cloudy sunny at 9am, almost no wind.


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May/13/2024 Mother Miguel Mountain to Sweetwater Reservoir Loop

 As expected, we find many plants that are new to us.
We were happy to find Cylindropuntia prolifera | Coast Cactus and Ferocactus viridescens viridescens in bloom.
Ferocactus viridescens viridescens has a very different habitat than the Ferocactus cylindraceus we are used to, they are often dangerously hidden in the grass.

It was a surprise to see that Zeltnera venusta | California centaury is so common here and grows larger flowers.

Our loop hike took us over the mountain on a very well-traveled route and down the other side, we lost everyone.
We ran into a bit of a problem as our return route was blocked by a wildlife preserve, making the hike a bit longer at 5 hours.

We ran into two problems, one is that the preserves here are fenced off, making some interesting plants we wanted to see inaccessible.

The good news is that we found almost all the plants we were looking for and in bloom.

Temperature: 50-60, cloudy-sunny, almost no wind.


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May/11/2024 Azalea Glen Loop

 This is a strange year for flowers, we didn't see the usual plants on our drive up to the trailhead, in fact we didn't see much in bloom at all.
As soon as we put on our boots we noticed the first new plant, the small Juncus amuricus | Western Toad Rush with it's tiny flowers.
We found Juncus amuricus in several other places.

Near the start a nice flowering Toxicoscordion venenosum venenosum | Death Camas.
An abundance of flowering Acmispon parviflorus lining the road.
Good flowering fields of Castilleja exserta exserta | Purple Owl Clover.
Some smaller patches of Leptosiphon parviflorus | Common Linanthus.

The plants in Azalea Spring itself are a bit overgrown with grasses.
We happened to check the south side of the road across from Azalea Spring, and found some of the best Toxicoscordion venenosum venenosum | Death Camas we have ever seen, and certainly the most abundant flowering plants.

Suddenly a flower we didn't recognize, sometimes we forget plants we haven't seen for years, but this looked like something completely new.
And it turned out to be many blooming Lewisia nevadensis | Nevada Lewisia, which may be the only place in San Diego County, but seems to be common in other places.

On our way down, we found beautiful blooming Carex multicaulis | Stick Sedge and Carex subfusca | Brown Sedge.

In one spot 2 tiny plants together, Juncus amuricus | Western Toad Rush and Veronica peregrina xalapensis | Hairy Purslane Speedwell.

A small number of Leptosiphon ciliatus | Whiskerbrush and Collinsia childii | Child's blue-eyed Mary completed the interesting finds.

Temperature: 62-68, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Normal, late.


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May/10/2024 Big and Little Laguna lake loop along PCT

 We wanted to do a variation of the hike, looping back along the PCT, a part of the PCT we've never hiked before.
Today's goal was to look for Ceratocephala testiculata, we were too late for the bloom, we will try again next year.

Along the way big fields of Platystemon californicus, one of the best we've ever seen.
Our previous route went right over Little Laguna Lake, which was now a tiny lake, pretty unusual to see so much water here.

This is one of the more interesting parts of the PCT with great views of Storm Canyon.
We found Amelanchier utahensis | Utah Service Berry, Umbellularia californica | California Bay and Cercis occidentalis | Western Redbud in bloom as some of the plants we see less often.

This part of the PCT must be getting enough sun for an earlier bloom, with nice fields of Leptosiphon floribundus glaber | Summersnow.
Early bloom is relative, as the bloom is probably a month behind previous years.
The best find today might be Lithophragma affine | Woodland Star, which we rarely see.

Temperature: 58-65, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Starting a good bloom.


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May/8/2024 Pine Valley Creek, Secret Canyon, Espinosa trail loop

 A loop around a hill in Pines Valley and a detour up Secret Canyon.

Bloom as expected got much better after almost 3 weeks, we added many plants (6) new to us.
The return loop is now overgrown with Toxicodendron diversilobum | Poison Oak and Acmispon glaber | Shortwing Deerweed.
We've been able to avoid most of the Toxicodendron diversilobum, which is very variable in appearance.

Temperature: 68, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Good.


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May/7/2024 Culp Valley

 Our goal was to look for Nemacladus, but this wasn't the year, we only found one Nemacladus longiflorus breviflorus.
On the bright side, we couldn't remember seeing such good fields of Oenothera californica avita | California Evening Primrose in the wild and not on the side of the road.
It was the perennials that benefited from the rain, while it was too cold for most annuals to germinate.

Bloom: Low.


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May/6/2024 Doane Valley loop

 We wanted to catch some early bloomers like Ribes nevadense | Mountain Pink Currant and Viola adunca adunca | Western Dog Violet and we found them in bloom.

Still a lot of water in the many streams.

On the plus side, there were hardly any annoying insects around yet.

On our way home we took the very scenic dirt road down the Nate Harrison Grade.

Temperature: 48-60, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Still low.


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May/4/2024 Mason Valley Salt Creek Loop

 This is becoming one of our most visited areas, the goal was to find a possible hybrid of Castilleja exserta exserta | Purple Owl's Clover.
We probably need another good year, because the number of Castilleja exserta exserta is low and the plants are small.

Bloom is actually good for some, like the many blooming Acamptopappus sphaerocephalus sphaerocephalus | Desert goldenhead, Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush, and Malacothamnus enigmaticus | Enigmatic bushmallow.
It's been a while since we looked for blooming Cylindropuntia fosbergii, Mason Valley cholla, and here we found several plants in bloom.
Another good blooming cactus: Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi | Gander's cholla.

Temperature: 84, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: >70 different plants in bloom, perennials good, annuals low.


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May/3/2024 McCain Valley

 Tom Chester alerted us that Walt Fidler had found Linanthus bellus in bloom, so we immediately changed our plans to see it.
Linanthus bellus is a fairly common plant in the area if you look at the voucher, but for a 4 hour round trip it's nice to know that the target plant is in bloom.
Our destination was Cottonwood Campground, but Google Maps took us on an interesting route that ended at a gate, still about 1.5 miles from our destination.
The only good thing was that we found blooming Geraea viscida | Sticky Desertsunflower on our detour.
It took us another hour, 3 hours in total, to finally reach the Cottonwood Campground.

We planned a small cross-country loop and soon we were finding blooming Linanthus bellus on a regular basis.
As a bonus, we found Gilia mexicana | El Paso Gilia, a plant we've seen at one location before and which seems to be more abundant here.

We made 2 more stops and a loop hike, finding Linanthus bellus on each hike.

At our last stop, the point pointed out by Tom Chester, we met Tom Chester and his group.
We led them to a spot where we found blooming Gilia mexicana that they had never seen before.

Temperature: 77, sunny, hardly any wind.

Bloom: Not bad.


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May/1/2024 Imperial Sand Dunes, Algedones

 We wanted to check out the Pholisma sonorae | Sand Food, which were abundant in a relatively small area.
Starting at the ranger stations, we hiked a 1-hour loop and easily found more than 100 blooming plants.
Encountering a huge blooming Hesperocallis undulata | Desert Lily was one of the other highlights.

Our next stop was the overlook, where we found beautiful blooming Panicum urvilleanum | Silky Panicgrass and Helianthus niveus tephrodes Algodones | Dunes Sunflower.

Our last stop on the west side along the railroad.
Here we wanted to check out the Nemacladus tenuis aliformis | Wingform Threadplant and they were flowering close to where we found them a few years ago, along with a Nemacladus orientalis | Eastern Threadplant.
Surprisingly, the Baileya pleniradiata | Woolly Desert Marigold is still in good bloom.
The goal here was to check on the two Sphaeralcea ambigua rosacea | Rose Globemallow we recorded last year, that might actually be Sphaeralcea emoryi | Emory's globemallow.

At all our stops, Oenothera deltoides deltoides | Evening Primrose and Abronia villosa villosa | Hairy Sand Verbena are still in bloom and large.

Temperature: 76-86, sunny, sometimes a light breeze.

Bloom: Still present.


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April/30/2024 Wilderness Gardens County Preserve

 We had no idea what to expect in a wilderness garden and were pleasantly surprised by the variety of plants and the much cooler weather.

Our goal was to find Chorizanthe procumbens, which turned out to be very easy as it's a very common plant here.

There are some plants that are planted, but most of it is wild.
The park is not large, but it took us 4 hours to hike all the trails, 5.2 miles in total, as slow as it gets for us.

We saw a lot of new plants that we hadn't seen before.

The bad, surprisingly of the larger plants, Carduus pycnocephalus | Italian thistle is by far the most widespread non-native plant, growing everywhere and up the hillsides.

Temperature: 54-77, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Good, probably peak.


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April/29/2024 West of Jacumba Peak

 We went to the dirt road that leads into our target area, no luck, no trespassing, private property.
Next we tried to enter north of the gas station and that looked OK, no signs at all, but that doesn't mean we weren't trespassing.

We hiked up to the plateau and there were our friends Stebbinsoseris heterocarpa | Grassland Silverpuffs growing in huge fields, all in fruit.
In between there were beautiful fields of flowering Malacothrix coulteri | Snake's head.

Huge fields of Harpagonella palmeri | Palmer's grapplinghook, as everywhere, it's a mystery why this plant is obscured in iNaturalist.
Large patches of Lasthenia gracilis | Common goldfields and patches of what may be Mentzelia ravenii | Raven's blazing star, no fruit yet for definitive ID.

Ancistrocarphus filagineus | Woolly Fishhook, a plant not common in the Anza Borrego Desert area, is common here and blooming by the thousands.
We found 3 Nemacadus, with the favorite Nemacladus ramosissimus | Smallflowered Threadplant.

New plants for us: Allium lacunosum | Pitted Onion, Euphorbia spathulata | Reticulate-seeded Spurge and California macrophylla | Round-leaved Filaree.

Our focus plant: Eriogonum clavatum | Hoover's desert trumpet We wanted to make sure these were not the plants we found in large numbers in the Anza Borrego Desert growing on flat terrain, like here.
Eriogonum clavatum, certainly looks different in and out of flower, larger flowers and stem hairs, compared to Eriogonum trichopes | Little Desert Trumpet.

Temperature: 84, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Not bad.


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April/27/2024 Blair Valley Granite Mountain Loop

 We had never hiked this loop in April and didn't know what to expect.
Flowering is not spectacular, but you do see flowers now and then.
Cactus bloom is general with all in bloom except Cylindropuntia fosbergii | Mason Valley Cactus.

Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush bloom is mixed, probably due to the cold weather, maybe 70-80% in bloom, but sometimes with less than a handful of small flowers, others in full bloom.
Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye bloom is better, with 99% of the plants in some form of bloom.

Here you will find strange looking Ferocactus cylindraceus with what looks like the lower part burned off by fire.
At this elevation, Salvia apiana | White Sage are near the beginning of flowering.

We were surprised to see Simmondsia chinensis | Jojoba blooming for a second time this season, we've seen this in several places now.
Diplacus fremontii | Fremont's Monkeyflower made an effort to fill the washes.
The best find was the many Nemacladus (longiflorus) breviflorus, short-flowered (long-flowered) Threadplant, with a longer tube variation that is common in the Anza Borrego Desert.

Looking at the photos you might expect a super bloom, but the photos are the best of the best and sometimes only a few plants were in bloom.

Temperature: 68, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Average, >70 different plants in bloom.


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April/26/2024 Red Hill Lava Flow Wash loop

 Our goal was to look for Prenanthella exigua | Brightwhite, if they were there and we think they were not this year, they would be extremely hard to find right now.
The very strong wind probably made it impossible to find Prenanthella exigua and made it difficult to get over Red Hill.

Most of the flowers are toast, with a few exceptions: Extremely happy and blooming Cucurbita palmata | Coyote melon, Agave deserti deserti | Desert agave that are starting to bloom.
Good blooming: Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, Krameria erecta | Pima rhatany and Krameria bicolor | White rhatany.
Most cacti are at or beyond the end of flowering.

There are still plenty of Nemacladus tenuis tenuis | Slender Threadplant in bloom, extremely difficult to photograph.

On the north side of Sweeney Pass, Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia are in incredible bloom, we even had to stop to check if the ID was correct, we didn't find a single flowering plant on our hike.

Temperature: 72, sunny, very windy 0-30 mph or more.

Bloom: Almost done


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April/24/2024 Mine Wash Loop 2

 Along the dirt road up Mine Wash, a very good bloom of Senna armata | Spiny senna and Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo.
Along our route up a smaller wash, hundreds if not thousands of night-blooming Eremothera refracta | Narrow-leafed suncup.

This is also the wash for thousands of small plants like Nemacladus rubescens | Desert Threadplant, Nemacladus glanduliferus | Glandular Threadplant and Nemacladus sigmoideus | Sigmoid Threadplant.
There are only a few Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's monkey flower in the washes.

It's time for all the cacti to bloom, it's unusual to see so many Mammillaria dioica dioica | Fishhook still in bud and flower.

Delphinium parishii subglobosum | Intermediate Larkspur in bloom, a break from all the yellow of Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush.
At the top of the hike and in the upper part of Mine Wash, large fields of Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion.
Mine Wash is also home to many Carlowrightia arizonica | Arizona Carlowrightia, in Mine Wash we've never seen them in bloom before and here many of them managed to bloom despite being grazed.

The best blooming Pholisma arenarium | sand plant was blooming in the middle of the dirt road.

Temperature: 63-75, sunny, light breeze.

Bloom: Good


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April/23/2024 Fages monument - CRHT - PCT - Loop

 The bloom doesn't look good from the start, but it's the tiny plants that are hard to see.
Good flowering Juncus bryoides, Chorizanthe polygonoides longispina and Erythranthe androsacea.

Fields of Lasthenia gracilis | Common Goldfields and Blennosperma nanum nanum | Common Sticky Seed.
We've seen Dendromecon rigida | Bush Poppy in bloom for months now, and here they are in spectacular full bloom.

It's still cold, so the last thing we expected was a rattlesnake, but we encountered a silent, thick snake, our first so high up in the desert.

Temperature: 51-64, sunny, no wind - 15 mph.

Bloom: Early stages.


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April/22/2024 Garnet Peak Loop

 We did a loop hike and did not go to kwaaymii_point, but hiked north..
The goal today was to find Selaginella asprella | Bluish Spikemoss and we probably found it, we hiked along a lot of rocks to find it.
Bloom didn't look that good, but we picked up more and more blooming plants.
By far the best flowering plant: Erodium cicutarium | Red stem filaree.

One of the highlights, large fields of blooming Chorizanthe polygonoides longispina | Long spined spineflower.

Best smelling plants: Ceanothus perplexans Cup-leaf Ceanothus.

Temperature: 66-75, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Better than expected, late, >35 different plants in bloom.


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April/20/2024 California - Jasper trail Loop

 We needed a higher elevation hike with blooms, this hike has an elevation gain of almost 2000 feet.
Along the Jasper Trail, one of the best Ceanothus perplexans blooms we've ever seen.
Oenothera californica avita | California evening primrose are predictable bloomers, but stick to the road for at least a decade.
Going down, what may be the best bloom of Leptosyne californica | California coreopsis we've seen in the Anza Borrego Desert, large fields following the drainages.

Further down, the only plant that is flowering well is Ericameria linearifolia.
The rest is mostly reddish grasses, mostly Bromus | brome.
We needed to see what the blue plants were up along the rocks, turned out to be well blooming Solanum | Nightshade, this was one of the rare occasions that there were enough blooming plants to produce a sweet scent.

The bloom is inverted, not what we expected, better at the top and dropping to almost nothing going down.
Best bloomer at the bottom: Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush.

We expect some flowering of Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye and Encelia actoni | Acton's brittlebush in the next few weeks.

At the bottom of the hike there is a reliable place to see Nemacladus (longiflorus) breviflorus | Short-flowered Longflowered, very small but blooming.
In the wash, some fields of Diplacus fremontii | Fremont's monkeyflower, our first sighting this year.

On a Saturday it's much more dangerous out here, we had just left the Jasper Trail road when a convoy of trucks came by at a frightening speed of 60+, they probably wanted to get up as fast as possible.
This made us cautious about going back on the Jasper Trail, if we encountered such a group it would be hard to avoid them, so we drove dead slow.

Bloom was a bit better as we entered the narrower canyon, just past a huge field of Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia.
Oddly enough, the Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia are not (yet) leaved out.

We checked a small area that was affected by the 2023 fire, here the plants were bigger, like Nemophila menziesii menziesii | Baby blue eyes and Lasthenia gracilis | Common goldfields.
Unfortunately no fire followers, only bigger plants

The hike turned into a 4 hour hike instead of the 2 1/2 hours we hiked 10 years ago.

Best smelling plants: Ceanothus perplexans | Cup Leaf Ceanothus and Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush

Temperature: 75, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Average, spotty.


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April/19/2024 Pine Valley Creek Espinosa trail loop

 A loop around a hill in Pines Valley.

Bloom: Starting.


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April/17/2024 Yaqui Meadows Loop

 We went out on what might be the hottest day of the week, but we started early.
Wow, we were expecting a somewhat toasted bloom, but the bloom is actually close to it's peak.
None of the plants seem to be running out of water.

All the yellow plants are in bloom, like Senna armata | Spiny Senna in the lower part and Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush in the upper part.
Mixed with Eschscholzia parishii, Trixis californica californica and cacti.
The only exception is Agave deserti deserti, which should join the mix in a few days.

The Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo are now in general bloom here and around town, adding red to the mix along with Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's monkey flower.

Many Hibiscus denudatus | Rock Hibiscus are in good bloom, sheltering all kinds of insects.
Nemacladus glanduliferus | Glandular Threadplant blooming by the hundreds mixed with Nemacladus rubescens | Desert Threadplant.
Finally we find blooming Delphinium parishii subglobosum and Eriastrum eremicum eremicum.

On our route there are a number of Scutellaria mexicana | Paperbag Bush; Mexican Bladder Sage, most of them in bloom and fruit.

A hillside is always different and somehow gets more rain or stores it better, here we expected and found a number of blooming Eremalche rotundifolia | Desert five spot.
Together with the best display of Eschscholzia parishii | Parish's poppy.

Best smelling plants: Senna armata in full bloom and Psorothamnus schottii that are starting to bloom.

Temperature: 71-90, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Good, should continue for some time.


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April/16/2024 Chuckwalla Wash

 A follow-up to our visit on February 24.
Bloom is much better than expected with most of the cacti in bloom.
Washes covered with smaller Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's monkey flower, mixed with almost invisible Eriophyllum wallacei rubellum | White Wallace's woolly daisy.
Unexpectedly many blooming Phacelia campanularia campanularia, desert bluebells along the canyon edges.

On the canyon walls some patches of Platystemon californicus | Creamcups. In the wash we found hundreds of Nemacladus rubescens | Desert Threadplant, Nemacladus glanduliferus | Glandular Threadplant and some Nemacladus sigmoideus | Sigmoid Threadplant.

On the way back we found a new population of >100 very happy blooming Tiquilia canescens canescens | Woody crinklemat.

Temperature: 55-80, sunny, no wind.

Blooming: Good, should continue until end of April.


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April/15/2024 Rockhouse Loop

 We have not hiked this particular loop in a long time.
One of the reasons is that it's on the beaten track and the return route is a bit long, straight and boring.
There are way too many footprints, which makes hiking more difficult.

Once past the lone palm and the rocks, the wash smells like a perfume shop, with the many Senna armata | Spiny Senna starting to bloom.
This is the year of the small plants, with hundreds of Nemacladus, Eriophyllum wallacei wallacei, Wallace's woolly daisy and Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii, Bigelow's monkey flower.

This late in the season is also prime cactus time, with most species in bloom.

Only leave footprints = no rock cairns, it's been a while since we've seen hundreds of rock cairns, we've removed them all.

Best smelling plants: Senna armata | spiny senna and Psorothamnus schottii | indigo bush.

Temperature: 60-70, sunny, a light breeze.

Bloom: Good.


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April/13/2024 Plum Canyon - North Pinyon Mountain Peak Loop

 A repeat from our visit on February/27/2024.
On our last visit the germination was good and the flowering is actually good to very good right now, but a lot of these plants are dwarfs.
And the best flowers are far away on the other side of the canyon.
As we hiked, it was obvious what was causing the small growth, the lack of water.
The Salvia columbariae, Chia in the wash are only a few inches tall, but a plant in a hole that got extra water was a normal tall plant.

The goal of the day, to follow up on the many mysterious Lupinus concinnus | Bajada Lupine, some green, some brown, others very hairy or not.
We are still as puzzled as before, the main problem today, most of the plants stayed very very small, with hardly any flowers.
Maybe this is the reason why they lumped all these different plants into Lupinus concinnus.

In our return wash, with no foot traffic except for us, the flowering was extremely good, but not showy.
The thousands of Eriophyllum wallacei rubellum | White Wallace's woolly daisy blend in with about the same color as the wash.
Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's Monkeyflower, also in the thousands, were too small to make the wash as showy as they would be if they were more normal in size.
Nama demissa demissa | Purplemat is present in the hundreds, as good as it gets.

The washes are filled with hundreds of Nemacladus, Nemacladus rubescens, Nemacladus sigmoideus and Nemacladus glanduliferus.

It's strange to see Mammillaria dioica dioica | Fishhook blooming in mid-April.
Right now Echinocereus engelmannii engelmannii | Engelmann's hedgehog is starting to bloom.

Justicia californica | Chuparosa are still in very good bloom for more than 1 1/2 months.
This area has many orange Justicia californica, it looks like an environmental thing as we found orange and red flowers on the same branch, close to each other.

On the yellow side there are many blooming Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye and Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush.

We found a single Phacelia campanularia campanularia | Desert bluebells that we have probably never seen before in this area.

Temperature: 54-70, sunny, intermittent wind, sometimes chilly.

Bloom: Good but often small, bloom should last until the end of April.


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April/12/2024 San Felipe Valley Wildlife area loop

 Over a month ago the Dendromecon rigida | Bush Poppy were already in bloom, it took them until now to get into full bloom.
Another good flowering plant Rhus ovata, Sugar Bush.
It's rare for us to see such a good full bloom Trichostema parishii | Parish's bluecurls.

From the S2 we noticed a faint yellow glow, we wondered what it could be, it was good, huge fields of large flowering Amsinckia intermedia | Common Fiddleneck.

Even after so many visits, we still managed to collect 2 plants we hadn't vouchered before.
Lathyrus vestitus alefeldii | San Diego pea, Phacelia minor | Wild Canterbury bells that we've never seen big enough.

Flowering should get much better, peak late May - June.

Best of all, no hunters around, no shooting.

Temperature: 80, sunny with a pleasant breeze.

Bloom: Still low, germination good.


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April/10/2024 Lake Henshaw, Love Valley Meadow

 Our first stop was Lake Henshaw to find early bloomers, we added blooming Geranium dissectum | Cut leaved crane's bill to our list.
Next stop Love Valley Meadow to check out an area new to us.
If possible, we will do a follow-up.

Temperature: 75, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Low, too early for significant bloom, many non-native plants

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April/9/2024 Diablo Dieguenos loop 2

 Our goal was to take vouchers of Eriogonum trichopes | Little Desert Trumpet, hoping to get a second opinion on the ID.
The plants look like Eriogonum trichopes, but there are hundreds if not thousands of them, which is very unusual in the Anza Borrego Desert.
Another thing we didn't like was the darker green basal leaves and the fact that none of the stems were swollen.
In the Mud Hills, which is very close to this site, all the stems are swollen and the leaves are brigher green.

The flowering is actually not bad and the plants are very large, cacti mostly Cylindropuntia echinocarpa | Golden cholla; Silver cholla are flowering in abundance.
This is the first time we've seen large Mohavea confertiflora | Ghost Flower, almost in the same place we found them before, they seem to stick to the same spot.

The bad: Off-roading is illegal here and getting way too popular, this is the first time we've seen a lot of tracks in this spot from what looked like a convoy of trucks.
In the wash the tracks are not good, but they went cross country, I expect they came from the Diablo drop off area.

Best smelling plants: Dalea and Psorothamnus schottii, indigo bush.

Temperature: 69-84, sunny, a light breeze.

Bloom: Good, past peak not too many non-native plants

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April/8/2024 Ant hill loop

 The area is being overrun by Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard, now forming large yellow patches.
The good news is that Brassica tournefortii doesn't like the soft sand dune areas, so some areas are free of non-native plants and look very good.

The flowering is actually better than on our last visit, the frequent light rains have helped to keep the pants alive in the sandy areas.
Most importantly, there are no caterpillars in the area.
Lupinus shockleyi | Desert Lupine, one of the caterpillars' favorites, is now able to grow as big as possible and get as wide as Lupinus arizonicus | Arizona Lupine, but certainly not as tall.

The goal today was to make a 100% ID on the many Mentzelia desertorum | Desert Blazingstar, seeds are the ultimate proof, but the seeds need at least a month to mature, by which time the plants are almost gone and there is no trace of any bloom.

The second goal was to see Chaenactis carphoclinia peirsonii | Peirson's Pincushion, a slow growing late bloomer, with some plants in bloom and it will be a few weeks before a full bloom.

You can see the clear effect of the sandy areas holding a lot of water, here the plants still look fresh, but outside the plants are smaller and mostly finished.
We were a bit surprised to find hundreds of large blooming Helianthus petiolaris canescens | Gray Desert Sunflower, many of them in the areas with no non-native plants.
Outside the sandy area, Helianthus petiolaris canescens is still present in large numbers, but often very small.

Some of the last blooming Hesperocallis undulata are in the sandy areas.

Best smelling plants: Abronia villosa villosa.

Temperature: 57-74, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Very good in the sand dunes, outside moderate-low, just past peak in the sand dunes, way out out of bloom outside the sandy areas, partially overrun by non-native plants

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April/6/2024 Mud Hills Loop

 We wanted to know if the seedlings we found were Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave wild buckwheat, and it turned out that they were.
The number of Eriogonum ordii along our route far exceeded our expectations, with hundreds of flowering plants.
In fact, they outnumbered Eriogonum trichopes | Little Desert Trumpet by a very large margin, probably by a factor of 9.

Another plant we wanted to check was Chaenactis carphoclinia peirsonii | Peirson's Pincushion, which we believe is a species, not a variation.

We always try to avoid the weekends here and it was as bad as expected, whole convoys of 20+ cars, crazy busy, during the week it's often deserted.
But we had to do it, because it will get very warm soon.
We were the only hikers on our route and didn't see any new tracks except our own.

Best smelling plant: Dalea mollissima, followed by Geraea canescens, desert sunflower.

Temperature: 54-67, sunny, almost no wind.

Bloom: Good for the area, probably up to mid April.


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April/4/2024 Big Wash North loop

 The road up to our trailhead is always tricky, now more than ever, because there were no car tracks to follow.
However, we had GPS and the memory of our previous visit where the wash "road" was supposed to be.
The "road" is rocky, often smooth sandy and sometimes very rocky, close to the limit of what we can drive, but we made it.

Bloom is not like the 2019 bloom, much less and different.
Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush, Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster and Parkinsonia florida | Blue palo verde are in great bloom.

But we came for the smallest plants.
We found whole fields of flowering Nemacladus tenuis tenuis, the only Nemacladus we found on our trip.

The destination was the often very small Phacelia neglecta | Alkali Phacelia, from the vouchers you might expect this to be a wash plant.
This is far from the truth, just a rare event that we've never seen before, until today when we found a few washed down plants.
The real home is on the mesas where the plants are somewhat abundant, we found more plants than in a good year (2019), but very small.
Much smaller is Nama pusilla | gravel mat, with tiny flowers living in the same habitat and also somewhat abundant.

Just below the mesa on the canyon wall is an abundance of Eschscholzia parishii, which does not grow on the mesa or below the narrow band.

Even stranger, as this seems to be perfect cactus terrain, there are almost none, we probably found only one Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus.

The trip was a bit longer, we hiked dead slow on the mesa to get as many plants as possible, we stayed just under 5 hours.
On the way back there was a sandstorm in the off-road area and only 74 degrees in Borrego Spring.
The night before my camera stopped working, so I had to take more time to get the best shots I could with my phone, the photos are not as sharp as they could have been, but not too bad.

Temperature: 84, sunny with a refreshing wind.

Bloom: Not bad, past peak bloom.

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April/3/2024 Otay Mountains

 We visit a slightly different site in Otay Mountain than we did on our last visit.
Bloom is still low, but we have added several new plants to our list, but we need to find some in bloom one of these days.


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April/2/2024 San Diego Coast / Spooners Mesa

 This was our super last minute visit, deciding on a trip the afternoon the day before, and noticed the weather was perfect.

We spend the day visiting several flower sites.
Bloom is good, with large fields of flowers, but most of these fields are made up of escaped garden plants.
We found many plants that we wanted to see in bloom.


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April/1/2024 Palo Verde Canyon Wash North

 Last time we found a strong smelling (turpentine?) plant that turned out to be Cymopterus panamintensis var. acutifolius, the first record in San Diego County.
Now we wanted to find them in bloom and almost forgot to follow up the plants.
The first plant was just out of flower and mostly in fruit.

The second plant that was close to the location was found by Tom Chester and Kate Harper on December 23, 2011, at that time they couldn't ID the plants, but after we found one, the ID was easier.
Yes, this one was flowering, not spectacular, maybe the reason no one else had ever noticed the plants.

Here we found a good bloom with fields of Eschscholzia parishii | Parish's Poppy and a very high number of blooming Nemacladus glanduliferus | Glandular Threadplant.

There was a recent report of what might have been a Pseudorontium cyathiferum | Deep Canyon Snapdragon, but we found nothing around that site.
On our last visit we found the remains of last year's Pseudorontium cyathiferum bloom.

Temperature: 70, mostly sunny with no wind.

Bloom: Good, past peak bloom.

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March/30/2024 Military Wash South

 Our search today was for Astragalus aridus | Annual Desert Milkvetch and Lupinus shockleyi | Desert Lupine.
We didn't find any Astragalus aridus and only a single flowering Lupinus shockleyi.

The flowering is actually good for the area, but with many non-natives in fruit.
We had a good time finding countless desert plants, like flowering Chorizanthe corrugata and Chorizanthe rigida.
In fact, this is one of the best Chorizanthe years we've ever seen, they are out in abundance.

Most fragrant plant: Encelia frutescens frutescens | button brittlebush, followed by Johnstonella angustifolia | narrow-leaved cryptantha.

The bad: We don't know who came up with the idea of putting the wilderness of Anza Borrego Desert State Park next to an off-road area.
It certainly doesn't work, and we've never seen so many tracks coming out of the San Felipe Wash, and there's hardly any enforcement.
We encountered two quads in a narrow pristine wash where many rare plants grow in a good year, they knew they were not supposed to be there as they were locals.
I expected better from the locals to protect the desert, to our surprise they turned around after we told them they were not supposed to be here. In fact, they were not even legal on the San Felipe Wash road.
Off roading is an ideal way to sterilize a wash for years.

Temperature: 70, mostly sunny, no wind, sky looks threatening, but we were outside the cloud cover.
Flowering: Still good for the area.


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March/29/2024 Dead Horse Trail loop

 We went to see a population of Sibaropsis hammittii | Hammitt's Clay-Cress in bloom.
Next stop, a loop we've never done before.

Bloom is low, but we did find a nice bloom of Berberis aquifolium dictyota | California Barberry, which we rarely see.
We were surprised to see Salvia sonomensis in bloom.

The hike follows the Sweetwater River, which is more like a river than the San Diego River at Santa Ysabel.
We tried to cross at the first crossing, which didn't look too appealing, so we kept looping.
The next crossing looked just as bad, so we went in, probably half knee deep, and got our feet wet.

The trail looped back down the rocky hillside on an excellent, slightly rocky trail.

We could hear the river and the official crossing was wide and deep, nice for a horse.
Fortunately, there was a crossing with some rocks that made it a little less deep.

Temperature: 54 but pleasant, sunny, some wind.
Flowering: Very low.


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March/27/2024 Hawk Canyon Loop

 We needed a short hike and this one fits nicely and we haven't hiked this loop in 10 years.
Bloom looks better than expected, Hawk Canyon is a bright spot in the area.

As a bonus, this is one of the most scenic areas, but we hiked the area so many times that we skipped it for a while.

It's off the beaten track, as there are many trails that go over all the ridges and out of the canyon floor.
Even on the beaten track we did not meet any hikers as everyone is sent somewhere else.

This is one of the largest and most accessible populations of Encelia farinosa phenicodonta.
A couple of years ago we would go back to see the larger Eremalche rotundifolia | Desert five spot that would be in bloom later in the day.

We checked out the San Felipe Creek area and it looked not too bad, interesting enough if we have the time.

Temperature: 73, sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Good, past peak bloom, almost no non-native plants.


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March/26/2024 Devils Canyon Loop

 This is one of the few areas in the south with sand dunes that might be home to Euphorbia platysperma, but as expected we found none.
The sand dunes are now transformed into a dense Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard;Asian Mustard forest, compared to almost nothing last year.

The flowering is certainly not bad and the Cylindropuntia wolfii | Wolf's cholla are in early bloom.
Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus are in good bloom.
No way, one of the rarest plants in the area Leptosiphon aureus decorus | White Linanthus, we've only seen it in two places.

Once in the Devils Canyon wash, 4 different Nemacladus, very rare to find so many in one place.
And we are just in time to see the Pholisma arenarium blooming.

Along the way several good blooming Sphaeralcea ambigua rosacea | Rosy apricot mallow and surprisingly good and large Nama demissa demissa | Purplemat.

Another no way a very big Linanthus maculatus emaculatus | Jacumba Mountains Linanthus, big as in visible while standing and in very good bloom.
A single washed up plant, later we found a whole new population of exceptionally good looking plants.
Unfortunately for the populations in this area, it only takes one motorcycle to wipe out the whole population.
Or a car, as it was close to tire tracks and clay pigeons.

All in all one of our better hikes.

Temperature: 74, sunny, sometimes windy, in the canyons almost no wind.
Flowering: Good, >70 different plants in bloom, just past peak bloom, many non-native plants in the sandy areas.


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March/25/2024 Grave wash - North Palm wash loop

 Today's goal was to find blooming Phacelia neglecta | Alkali Phacelia, a somewhat rare plant that we haven't seen in a long time.
We were lucky, right in the middle of the bloom. As always, all the plants on the mesa are small, but many of the Phacelia neglecta were in bloom.
We even added a few new Phacelia neglecta locations.

Going at botanical speed would have taken us well over 4 hours, so we took a shortcut that worked out well.
The bonus was finding a new wash with Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster.

Bloom is better than average with lots of Langloisia setosissima setosissima | Bristly Langloisia in bloom and even more Chorizanthe rigida | Devil's spineflower.
Some walls covered with Eschscholzia parishii | Parish's poppy.

The road down into the South Palm Wash, was good and even better when we came back, on a recently graded dirt road, never seen it that good before.

Temperature: 73, sunny, no wind, windy in Borrego Springs.
Flowering: Good, but past peak bloom, hardly any non-native plants


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March/23/2024 North of Clark dry lake loop2

 We wanted to check out a mystery plant posted on iNaturalist, expecting something new to the area, and it might be a washed down Artemisia californica | California Sagebrush or more likely a Hybrid Ambrosia × platyspina.

This time we went further north and along the alluvial fan of the Santa Rosa Mountains.
The Hesperocallis undulata | Desert Lilies are still blooming, but some are already finished.
Most of the Hesperocallis undulata here are low stemmed dense flowering plants, we found one very tall plant that probably started after the 2023 summer rains.

A couple of nice blooming Antirrhinum filipes | Twining snapdragon, with lots of blooming Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus.
Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelions are already fully open at the start of the hike, maybe it's the temperature or they're closer to the end of their bloom.
The same goes for the many Rafinesquia neomexicana | Desert chicory that are now fully grown plants.

Plants along the Santa Rosa Mountains tend to get bigger, like the large Fagonia laevis.

In our return wash, filled with good flowering Encelia frutescens frutescens | Button Brittlebush and pretty Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush, mostly in fruit.
Many blooming Aphyllon cooperi cooperi | Broomrape a parasite usually on Ambrosia dumosa | Burrobush.
More and more cacti are starting to bloom like many Cylindropuntia echinocarpa | Golden cholla;Silver cholla.

The bad news is that even with the extra water, the plants are at the end of flowering and the caterpillars are already devouring the plants.

Temperature: 75 warmer than expected, mostly sunny, light wind.
Flowering: Still rather good with >65 different plants in bloom, but way past peak sometimes overrun by non-native plants


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March/22/2024 Vallecito Wash Oriflamme Wash loop

 The dirt road, which was very bad, is now in excellent condition because it's been recently graded.
There are some fields of Lasthenia gracilis | Common Goldfields, but not great.

There are still many good flowering Ziziphus parryi parryi | Lotebush.
Best annuals Amsinckia intermedia | Common fiddleneck, most of good size and bloom.
Best perennial Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush.
On a hillside a good number of blooming Phacelia minor | Wild Canterbury bells.
The best find of the day, flowering Eriogonum thurberi | Thurber's buckwheat.

Best flowering plant Brassica tournefortii | Sahara mustard; Asian mustard, most rather small.

The many much larger sceletons of Brassica tournefortii made hiking much more difficult because you couldn't see where you were going.

Temperature: 73, sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Low, almost no annuals, an abundance of non-native plants


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March/19/2024 Stone wash

 The North Fish Creek Fork is always much more challenging and rocky than the easy South Fork.
Rocks near the trailhead are an interesting obstacle, this time we just managed to get over the bigger ones and the rest of the trail was more sandy.
Getting to the trailhead by car is touch and go and different every season, depending on the amount of sand washed down to cover the rocks.
If we hadn't been able to get to the trailhead, we would have done another hike, as it would have added 2 hours to an otherwise relatively easy hike.
The recent thunderstorm was more active than we expected, the car got a bit heavier from the mud and I spent some time removing the concrete mud from the car.

Stone Canyon is at the top of one of the most scenic canyons in the Anza-Borrego Desert, but few can find it, hidden behind a large steep dry fall.
Bloom is good for the area and interesting as the area is part badlands and part rocky terrain.

Most impressive are the fields of Eschscholzia parishii and Peucephyllum schottii that line the canyon.

Temperature: 73, mostly sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Good for the area >60 different plants in bloom, close to peak bloom, hardly any non-native plants


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March/17/2024 North of Clark dry lake loop2

 I noticed large fields of Abronia villosa villosa | Desert sand verbena a few days earlier while hiking higher up in the Santa Rosa Mountains.
We chose a route with no and a few iNaturalist observations.
It was not long after some rain, we found water where we didn't expect it, the gravel road was flooded.
But there is a side road that avoids the water. When we crossed the lake itself, there was no sign of water.

I don't remember getting our shoes wet from the wet plants, that was unexpected.
After half an hour we hit the big fields of Abronia villosa villosa, as beautiful as it gets, but we miss the yellow color.
Sometimes the area is devoid of non-native plants, sometimes they are abundant.

At the alluvial fan of the Santa Rosa Mountains, the plant gets more divers and suddenly there are a lot of other plants.
The Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion are almost close and look battered from the rain.
They look as good as it gets after 11 a.m. when they are fully open.

Strongest smelling plant: Abronia villosa villosa.

Temperature: 66, sunny - partly sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Good, past peak, sometimes overrun by non-native plants


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March/15/2024 Otay Mountains

 We visited a nature reserve and were alone again, no one around and many interesting plants.
The bad, we've never seen so much garbage along the hundreds of trails from immigrants and even a cave where the trail was hard to find because of all the garbage, we've never seen so many backpacks.
And along the pavement, more Border Patrol agents than we've ever seen on foot.

Carla was able to locate a Fritillaria biflora biflora | Chocolate Lily site where we found many blooming plants and we added a few more sites.
Here we found incredibly dense populations of blooming Diplacus puniceus | Red Bush Monkeyflower.

We had a wild goose chase for a misplaced iNaturalist site and ended up in dense bush.
As expected, we found several new plants that we had not seen in Torry Pines.

Next was a car tour, luckily we had a GPS route of the road, otherwise we might not have been able to find it.
A really nice gravel road that goes steeply up the mountains, the road is narrow and it's very steep on one side.
Here we found many "rare" plants that were very abundant on the slopes.
A single blooming Pickeringia montana var. tomentosa, Woolly Chaparral Pea, which we never expected to see in bloom, among hundreds of non-blooming plants.

If possible, we will be back in a month or so.

On the way to our trailhead the traffic was much too dense, but on our way home on a different route the road was deserted.


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March/14/2024 Torey Pines

 When we looked at the weather forecasts, they contradicted each other and changed by the hour.
All in all we had a good partly sunny day.

We wanted to see some of the coastal plants we hadn't seen before.
It was very busy on the roads and as busy as we expected in the park, probably not super crowded, but too crowded for our taste.

However, we found more new plants than we expected, well over fifty.
Going back, Google Maps showed unusually busy, not a good sign, and our speed was about 3 times faster than walking.


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March/12/2024 Henderson Canyon begin

 The goal today was to look for Phacelia rotundifolia | Roundleaf Phacelia, which leaves looks almost identical to Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy.
Even the Perityle emoryi plants were small and not flowering at the known locations. We didn't find any Phacelia rotundifolia, but because the plants are so small we might have missed them.

In the lower part the flowering is good and sometimes showy with fields of Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion.

Phacelia campanularia campanularia | Desert bluebells are small.
The bad, once the main Henderson trail enters the wash, plants have no chance of growing in the wash, way too much foot and bike traffic.

The highlight: good flowering and showy Justicia californica | Chuparosa.

Strongest smelling plant: Ambrosia salsola salsola, Cheesebush.

Temperature: 68, partly-sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Normal, not showy > 50 different plants in bloom, already beyond peak bloom, overrun by non-native plants.


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March/11/2024 Alma Wash

 We wanted to see the night bloomer Eremothera refracta | Narrow leaf suncup, we went early and arrived before 8 am.
Eremothera refracta was blooming spectacularly by the thousands and followed us far up the alluvial fan.
The Eremothera refracta flowering was almost over by 9:30 am, but we still found plants with some flowers later.
We wanted to have a quick look after the 7+ hour hike the day before.

But the bloom was good, we felt good enough and ended up just before the main canyon on a 4 hour loop.
At the main canyon the bloom was very good, at the parking the bloom was OK.

Strongest smelling plant: Psorothamnus schottii | Indigo Bush.

Temperature: 71, sunny - partly sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Excellent > 65 different plants in bloom, will not get much better without additional rain, almost no non-native plants.


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March/10/2024 North of Clark dry lake loop

 Today's goal was to visit the northernmost population of Bursera microphylla | Elephant Tree in the Anza Borrego Desert.
The Bursera microphylla grow on the flank of the Santa Rosa Mountains and are by far the most inaccessible Bursera microphylla we know.
It takes a tough seven-hour hike to get to two populations of good-looking, larger and young plants.
What started our quest

The flowering in the dunes is very good, as good as it gets.
Perhaps the best Oenothera deltoides deltoides | Dune Evening Primrose fields right now with large fields of Malacothrix glabrata | Desert Dandelion.
There is an abundance of non-native plants that gets worse every time we get here.

Like everywhere else, Ferocactus cylindraceus, the California barrel cactus, is in the early stages of flowering.
Opuntia basilaris basilaris | Beavertail are in an even earlier stage of bloom.

I was pleased to see many blooming Encelia farinosa phenicodonta | Purple-eyed brittlebush, a much less common variety.

The hike was harder than expected, long without a trail, lots of rocks and an avalanche area with large boulders.

Strongest smelling plant: By far Bursera microphylla, could be smelled from over a hundred meters.

Temperature: 74, sunny - partly sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Excellent, will not get much better without additional rain, too many non-native plants.


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March/9/2024 Coyote Mountain Loop

 Along the entire loop, Allionia incarnata incarnata is by far the most abundant flowering plant, followed by Dalea.
It was puzzling not to see any Eschscholzia | Poppy on the west side of the mountain. We'd seen a good number the day before on the slightly lower slope.

We had a good view of the flower fields, best visible were Abronia villosa villosa | Desert Sand Verbena and Geraea canescens | Desert Sunflower.
Oenothera deltoides deltoides | Dune Evening Primrose, which are abundant, were not visible from a distance.
The brightest yellow rectangle, the Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion next to Di Giorgio Rd.

What a different bloom compared to other years, no year is the same. Better in some ways and missing a lot of plants we found at the same time years ago.

Best find of the day: several flowering Linanthus jonesii | Jones' Linanthus, some with open and closed flowers, not always in the expected open order.

Strongest smelling plant: Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush with a strong smell of old cheese.

Temperature: 74, sunny - partly (defuse) sunny, no wind.
Flowering: Slightly above normal > 50 different plants in bloom, will not get much better without additional rain, not many non-native plants.


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March/8/2024 Henderson Canyon Rd / Coyote Canyon

 We started on Henderson Canyon Rd and looped back along the west side of the Coyote Mountains on a 3 1/2 hour hike.

Come as early as 8 a.m. to see the best blooms, as the dune primroses are night bloomers. It's a little busy on a weekday and probably a lot busier on weekends.

The bloom is spectacular, the conditions were obviously perfect starting with the August 2023 rain and the many follow ups and it will probably last until the end of March.
We have had some good years, but this is a once in a decade bloom.

The plants are in the Coyote Canyon stream that fans out over a large area, the sandy area that has held a lot of water is perfect for some native wildflowers.
The effort to remove Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard;Asian Mustard has paid off, it looks pretty clean from the road.
Walking a bit further there are still hundreds if not thousands of non-native plants, but the overwhelming majority are large native plants.

Bloom drops off after 1 mile, but picks up again further into the canyon.
On the rocky edge of the Coyote Mountains you will find several flowers, such as fields of Malacothrix glabrata | Desert dandelion and Rafinesquia neomexicana | Desert chicory.
Good patches of Eschscholzia parishii | Parish poppy Monoptilon bellioides | Desert star mixed with Lupinus arizonicus | Arizona lupine.

Temperature: 74, sunny, no wind.

Flowering: As good as it gets, lots of non-native plants, away from the road.


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March/6/2024 Red Rock Loop / Fossil Canyon

 It's rare that we visit a place without knowing what to expect.
Prior to our visit, there were no observations on iNaturalist, CalFlora, and no vouchers.
So we made sure to record all the different plants along our route.

On our way down, we spotted a plant we didn't expect to see, Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster.
A bonus, this is now the southernmost known location of Xylorhiza orcuttii.

This area was certainly hit by the August 2023 rains and much of what we see now is the result of that event and some subsequent rains.

Next stop Fossil Canyon by driving down the wash to Shell Canyon Rd.
No way, the road to Fossil Canyon is now blocked by a deep gully from the August 2023 rain.
We managed to get a little further by turning west.

Still, it's a lot more effort to get to the entrance of Fossil Canyon, about 1/2 hour in rough terrain.
Near our new parking spot is a large, now almost dry pool.

Hiking up a rocky drainage out of Fossil Canyon, the first candidate I checked was indeed a Eucnide rupestris | rock nettle.
Another record for us as the southernmost Eucnide rupestris we have ever found.

We didn't enter Fossil Canyon proper, but headed north to look for terrain that might hold a presumptive location of Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave wild buckwheat, and as expected we found none.
But this is a nice area to hike, maybe one day.

Here the rain effects are even stronger with nice blooming plants and for the first time this year fields of Lupinus arizonicus, Arizona Lupine.

Temperature: 69, some clouds - sunny, light breeze.

Bloom: Good, >50 different plants in bloom, hardly any non-native plants.


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March/5/2024 Glorietta Canyon loop 3

 I noticed Crossosoma bigelovii blooming on iNaturalist, which we haven't seen in a while.
We haven't hiked this particular short loop in over 10 years.

The bloom isn't very visible, but divers and the Crossosoma bigelovii | Rock Crossosoma are in good bloom.

There are many large Lyrocarpa coulteri | Coulter's lyrepod along the trail, with the best flowering plant in full shade.
Physalis crassifolia are unusually happy here.

Shattered on this loop, not bad looking blooming Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's monkey flower.

The hike is fairly easy, but suddenly it gets much steeper with some boulders.

The best find, what appears to be Spermolepis infernensis | Hellhole Scaleseed, we were in a suitable area and for the first time we thought lets look for them and there they were, that was a lucky strike.
We are getting closer to the Hellhole Canyon that bears it's name, but where we and Tom Chester failed to find them.

Temperature: 69, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Normal, >50 different plants in bloom, peak now or towards the end of March, hardly any non-native plants.


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March/4/2024 Ant hill loop

 This would be one of the most spectacular blooms we have in the Anza Borrego Desert right now if not for the non-native plants.
The good thing is that we have probably never seen it this good before, but a little less divers.
The area is much larger than the Henderson Canyon road, but much less accessible, it took us almost 5 hours to circle the bloom area.
On the flip side, we've never seen such a good bloom of the non-native Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard, growing by the tens of thousands if not millions.

The area has vast areas of blow sand that are perfect for Oenothera deltoides deltoides | Dune Evening Primrose, some of the huge plants must have germinated from the August 2023 rain.
Other large patches of Abronia villosa villosa | Desert sand verbena and Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown-eyed primrose.

At the top of our hike, near Fonts Point, the non-native plants are completely gone, as there are few visitors in the area. In fact, today was the first time we saw anyone out here.
The main cause of Brassica tournefortii is the cars on S22 and the abundance of off-road vehicles in the area before the Anza Borrego Desert State Park boundary.
Beyond the boundary the non-native plants decrease dramatically.
As everywhere else, Hesperocallis undulata | desert lily is present in abundance.

Somewhat rare native plants, more or less restricted to this area, are Lupinus shockleyi | Desert lupine and Mentzelia desertorum | Desert blazingsta, but are found up to the Henderson Canyon road and around Clark Dry Lake.

The bad thing today was the wind, which was a little stronger than we expected, so we hiked out of the wash for the start of the hike.
The blowing sand generally stays close to the surface, but certainly falls into the canyons.

There are some signs of plants running out of water, but most should continue to bloom for a few more weeks until the caterpillars devour everything.

Best smelling plants: Abronia villosa villosa and Chylismia claviformis peirsonii.

Temperature: 71, sunny, windy at the start of our hike.

Bloom: Very good, peak now or mid March, overrun by non-native plants.


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March/2/2024 Agua Caliente Airport Loop

 Our hike is just beyond the cloud cover and rain sprinkles.
The goal was to get the GPS track of the hike correct, the last time we deviated from the planned route and ended up on an older hike.

The Vallecito Creek is filled with non-native Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard.
Outside is cactus terrain. Currently the area is filled with fallen cactus segments, making it an obstacle course.

The Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus is in full bloom, soon it will be all over the Anza Borrego Desert if it hasn't already.
This is the second cactus of the season, after the still blooming Mammillaria dioica dioica | Fishhook.

The bloom isn't impressive, but we have a good variety of blooming plants. Look out for the small native Draba cuneifolia.
The area is also home to the most beautiful spurge: Euphorbia pediculifera pediculifera | Carrizo mountain spurge.
Justicia californica | Chuparosa is a good bloomer everywhere, including here.

Some of the Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo are starting to bloom and we may have a general bloom in April if not earlier.
Higher up in the washes, a large number of small Diplacus bigelovii bigelovii | Bigelow's Monkeyflower are in bloom.
This is one of the most diverse cacti areas in the Anza Borrego Desert with blooms well into April.

Today there was a good show of clouds and rain hanging over the Laguna Mountains and fighting its way over the range.

Temperature: 54-64 but feels comfortable warm on our hike, sunny, a breeze once in a while.
Bloom: Normal, germination present, might get slightly better.


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March/1/2024 San Felipe Valley Wildlife area loop

 A hike in our area of special interest.

Temperature: 54-64, sunny, a breeze in the open area, not up the hillside.
Bloom: Low, germination good.


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February/28/2024 First Crossing loop

 Bloom is good from zero crossing to Desert Garden.
On our hike the bloom was considerably less. There was probably too much water running down the washes, as the washes are unusually devoid of annuals.
Our standard has gone up in the past few good years, otherwise we would probably call the bloom good.

What's certain is that we have one of the best Hesperocallis undulata | desert lily blooms, even here we found many in bloom.
Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush and Justicia californica | Chuparosa are in good to very good bloom right now.

The most common bloomer: Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard and Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small Flowered Trailing Windmills.
Best smelling plant: Condea emoryi | Desert lavender and Ambrosia salsola salsola | Cheesebush, if you like goat cheese.

This was a short hike, so we checked out a spot in Coyote Creek before zero crossing.
The bloom here is as good as we've ever seen, with large fields of Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown-eyed primrose, but not varied in color.
We noticed a lot of Lupinus arizonicus | Arizona Lupine in and near bloom.
One hill was covered with Eremalche rotundifolia | Desert five-spot, with two already in bloom and many more to follow.

From the asphalt to the zero crossing the bloom is generally better, but not right now, we are missing lupines, not sure if the bloom will improve in this otherwise good spot.

Temperature: 76, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Normal, germination present, might get slightly better mid March.


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February/27/2024 Plum Canyon - North Pinyon Mountain Peak Loop

 The germination is impressive, but a lot of it is almost too small to see, with extra rain we should get a good flowering here.

It's still cool out here with a cloud cover until we reach the highest point on a saddle, strangely there was no wind on the highest point.
On the saddle it was completely sunny.

The flowering of Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot, after which the canyon is named, is okay but not spectacular.

Today's goal was to record the variation in young Lupinus concinnus | Bajada lupine.

This was our most difficult hike of the season, but one of the most promising in a month or so.

Best smelling plant: Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot and in a few days Ziziphus parryi parryi | Lotebush.

Temperature: 64, cloud cover - sunny, wind intermittent.

Bloom: Low, germination good, it should be a normal or a good bloom from mid March.


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February/26/2024 Mud Hills Loop

 We were surprised to see no Langloisia setosissima setosissima | Bristly langloisia, they are long gone as we found the skeleton plants and new germination.
Chorizanthe rigida | Devil's spineflower is a good rain indicator if you look around the skeletons. Germination is good on Chorizanthe rigida.
The contrast to our Fish Creek hike a week ago is striking, here good germination and lots of blooming plants like many happy Geraea canescens | Desert sunflower.

Abronia villosa villosa | Desert sand verbena is growing as expected and will continue to do so until the plants run out of water.
Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy is doing well with walls covered with larger plants.
Some of the Acmispon strigosus | Bishop's lotus are amazingly large plants, but maybe they look that way because they are all alone on a hill.

Last time we were confused by the fact that some ridges were better than others. The top layer of some ridges is still covered by a layer of sand.
The terrain is very variable with a thick layer of shells, sand and sandstone and finally the salty mud layer.
We even found a good number of Hesperocallis undulata on some of the hills.

One of our friends Eriogonum ordii, Fort Mohave wild buckwheat, is doing well and we found a spot with hundreds of germinating plants. Let's see how many survive the rodents and rabbits.

Last time we had an obstacle, a mud pool that was impossible to cross, now we found a lot of water in the same spot. It seems we have a seepage at this location.
Noticeable is the desert "snow" (salt) that covers large areas.

We probably need to follow up, still a lot of germination of e.g. Chaenactis.

Best smelling plant: Johnstonella angustifolia | Narrow leaf cryptantha, followed by Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy.

Temperature: 78, cloud cover, no wind.

Bloom: Good, germination good, it should be a normal or a good bloom up to mid March or longer.


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February/24/2024 Chuckwalla Wash

 We haven't been to Pinyon Mountain Peak in 10 years, that year it took us 3 1/2 hours, now 4 1/2 hours with all the stops for plants.

A nice but not too easy hike, crossing from Lizard to Chuckwalla.
To our surprise, the most abundant flowering plant is Euphorbia eriantha | Beetle Spurge. It's there in huge numbers and all of them are eaten.

Even the cacti aren't spared, we found an Echinocereus engelmannii engelmannii | Engelmann's hedgehog with the top removed, which took some courage.
And some Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi with a bite out of the stem.

We probably need to follow up on this as we marked a few plants.

Best smelling plant: First I would say Prunus fremontii | Desert Apricot, which smells nice.
But Ziziphus parryi parryi | Lotebush with only a few flowers smells much stronger and still nice.

Temperature: 68, faint cloud cover - almost sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, germination good, it should be a normal or a good bloom mid March.


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February/23/2024 Thimble Palo Verde loop

 We feared an abundance of Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard, and that turned out to be true, but certainly not as bad as we expected.
There were even some areas with almost no Brassica tournefortii.

We spent time recording all the Lupinus shockleyi | Desert Lupine on our way, a fairly easy plant to recognize by the persistent cotyledons, even easier by the color and by the way they are eaten, leaving only the petioles.

Hesperocallis undulata | Desert lily is abundant on our route and in early bloom. We recorded 161 plants, capturing at least 1%-10% of the population.
The number of Hesperocallis undulata near our route should be at least 2000, probably many more.

On our return in the badlands wash, bloom and germination were lower than expected.

The flowering should peak in mid-March and look good if the Brassica tournefortii doesn't overrun the area as it has in previous years.

Best smelling plant: Dalea, but only when touched.

Temperature: 74, mostly sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, germination good.


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February/22/2024 Salt Creek North West Loop

 A partially new hike in the Salt Creek area.
We follow several seeps and springs and along the flowing Salt Creek.
This hike is on our list of frequent hikes.

Starting to bloom: Prunus fremontii | Desert apricot, Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush and Rhus ovata | Sugar bush.
This may be the only large stand of hundreds of happy Malacothamnus enigmaticus | Enigmatic bushmallow in our area, in the 2021 Southern Fire Zone.

The best smelling plant: Eriodictyon trichocalyx lanatum | Smoothleaf yerba santa.

Temperature: 65, sunny, no wind - light breeze.

Bloom: Low, germination good.


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February/20/2024 Military Wash South East

 The best bloom was on the drive down Buttes Pass Road with lots of blooming Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown-eyed primrose.
Along Buttes Pass Road our first (3) blooming Hesperocallis undulata | Desert Lily of the year and we expect to be overwhelmed by blooming Hesperocallis undulata this season.
On this hike we found over 100 Hesperocallis undulata in bud.

Which is the greenest of them all? Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard.
Brassica tournefortii was present at the spectacular bloom in 2019. But by the end of that season, Brassica tournefortii was present in overwhelming numbers.
Now, 5 years later, there were still enough seeds to grow Brassica tournefortii in large numbers and be the most abundant flowering annual.

Despite the mustard, there will still be a good show as germination is good, with peak flowering likely in mid-March.

Temperature: 68, sunny - thin cloud cover, almost no wind.

Bloom: Low, germination good - very good.


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February/19/2024 Gravel pit

 It's been a while since we visited this canyon, last time we were looking for Petalonyx linearis | Narrow-leafed sandpaper plant, which is somewhat rare.
Petalonyx linearis is found in Inner Pasture Canyon next door, once every few years.

This time I went beyond the dry fall on a tricky steep route at the side of the canyon, adding 45 minutes over rough rocky terrain.
The goal was a rock slide, visible on Google Earth, a potential site of Petalonyx linearis, but I found nothing.
The way back was much more difficult, it's steep and slippery and the GPS route was hard to follow.

In the canyon Pleurocoronis pluriseta | Arrowleaf is abundant and for a change the plant with the dominant scent.
Also abundant in the shade: Phacelia pedicellata and Chylismia cardiophylla cardiophylla.
As a bonus, we found many interesting baby plants along the way.

The next stop was the Xylorhiza orcuttii bohl, an atypical place to find a high number of X. orcuttii, often high up in the granitic rock drainages.
Here we found perhaps the best flowering Pleurocoronis pluriseta | Arrowleaf we've seen in years.

Temperature: 71, sunny with no wind.

Bloom: Low, germination good, not many non-native in the canyon.


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February/17/2024 North of Clark dry lake loop

 Wow, it's very, very green out here, unfortunately 90% of it is non-native, especially Sisymbrium irio | London rocket.
Volutaria tubuliflora | Knapweed is now out of control, we found some very large flowering plants.

The goal was to find special plants like Phacelia ivesiana | Ives Phacelia, Johnstonella costata | Ribbed cryptantha, Eriastrum harwoodii | Harwood's woolly star and Lupinus shockleyi | Desert lupine, and we found them all in good numbers.

You can still see a glimpse of what might have been, without the non-native plants.

Temperature: 73, sunny with no wind.

Bloom: Good, not divers, germination very good, but 90% if not more non-native


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February/16/2024 Elephant Knees South Loop

 This is a repeat from our November 2023 visit, when we found an area with a large number of flowering Eriogonum trichopes | Little desert trumpet.
At that site we forgot to look for Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave wild buckwheat.
Now we did, and we found a few Eriogonum ordii, maybe 1% of the Eriogonum trichopes population.
Eriogonum trichopes and Eriogonum ordii are past their monsoon peak, but we found several of both in bloom along our route.

A surprise find, a large number of Erodium texanum | Texas filaree in bloom along our route, it's unusual to find them in bloom and even more so in good bloom.
This is Lycium fremontii | Fremont's desert thorn territory, we found them in most of the washes with several in good bloom.
Geraea canescens | Desert sunflower bloom is low and they show the lack of recent rain.

Many washes and hills are a bit white like snow from the recent washed out minerals.

Temperature: 72, sunny with no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, germination is spotty, the visible flowers show lack of water.


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February/14/2024 Palo Verde Canyon Wash North

 In 2023 we found two localities of Pseudorontium cyathiferum | Deep canyon snapdragon, a plant never before recorded in San Diego County.
Later, Sanjiv Nanda found additional sites in the Palo Verde Wash.

On our own sites we didn't find any skeleton plants and didn't know exactly what they looked like.
Surprisingly, we found 3 skeleton plants on previously known sites.

Going up the alluvial fan of the Palo Verde Wash, germination is good to very good outside of the wash.
Germination dropped off as we entered the narrower canyon.

We found a single plant on our trip that we could not identify at first.
A strong smelling plant that may be Cymopterus panamintensis var. acutifolius, this may be a new find in San Diego County.

The bad: too much Pennisetum setaceum | fountain grass small and large at the end of the canyon.

Temperature: 64, sunny with no wind.

Bloom: Low, germination is spotty from low to very good, peak bloom expected in March.


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February/13/2024 Sweeney Jojoba Wash Sin Nombre loop

 On our drive it was near freezing in Sentenac Canyon and in Earthquake Vally the pooling water was frozen.
The most abundant larger annual is Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard along the road and on our hike.

There are many skeletons of Lupinus arizonicus and Perityle emoryi, but hardly any germinating plants of these two species.
The skeleton plants are from the big 2023 bloom in the area, while there is no repeat this year, the bloom could still be good.
Both male and female Simmondsia chinensis | Jojoba are beginning to flower.

What is puzzling is the abundance of young Justicia californica | Chuparosa, 1-2 years old. The rain must have been perfect.

The main canyon on the west side of the S2 has an abundance of Horsfordia newberryi | Newberry's velvet mallow and Mirabilis tenuiloba | Slender lobed four o'clock.

One of the goals was to find skeleton Mohavea confertiflora | Ghost flower, we mapped a site where we found over 100 plants in 2019, here we found absolutely nothing.
Luckily we found a single skeleton of Mohavea confertiflora earlier on the hike, the plant is probably from 2023 and is pretty solid, not something that blows away easily.

The best find of the day, a couple of baby Psorothamnus schottii | Indigo bushes in a rodent cache, it's a mystery why we don't find them more often as this is one of the most common plants.

Temperature: 55-65 felt like 80, sunny and no wind.

Bloom: Low, germination is spotty from low to good, peak bloom expected in mid march.


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February/12/2024 First-Second-Third Crossing

 It's very green up in Coyote Canyon, but most of the green is bad non-native plants, like thousands of Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard, if not much more.
There is some water flowing at the zero crossing.

The bloom isn't as visible as it was during our visit in December 2023.
The flash flood rearranged the stream again, not very dramatically, but a lot of plants have to start from scratch.
The small pond that formed in the creek is now gone, it's just a stream again.

The banks of the creek are still muddy and guaranteed to get your feet wet if you stay close to the creek.

Most of the plants are non-native and invasive, and we think we have added a new plant for the area, Avena fatua | Wild Oat.
The best bloomer is Encelia farinosa farinosa | Brittlebush, followed by Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy and mustard.

Temperature: 60 at the end of our hike, sunny and no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, peak early March, 48 different plants in bloom.


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December/23/2023 Inspiration Point Wash loop

 We needed a hike off the pavement, because driving in the badlands after rain is a bad idea.
It had been exactly 7 years since our last visit here.

It must have been a very good bloom from the August storm, most of the Psorothamnus schottii | Indigo bushes are in full fruit.
And all the Psorothamnus are still somewhat in bloom.

This loop is diverse, the soil composition is different along the route, resulting in different plants.
The result is no Geraea canescens | Desert Sunflower on our first part and many on the second part of the loop.

On a hill in the middle of the badlands, possibly with a water source, Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed, Abronia villosa villosa | Desert sand verbena, and Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster.
Xylorhiza orcuttii almost never ventures far from a wash.

As we walked out of the main wash at Inspiration, we suddenly saw a large flat green plant on the bank, two blooming Oenothera deltoides deltoides | Dune Evening Primrose.

We checked the Fouquieria splendens splendens | Ocotillo, they have tiny leaves all the time when they look leafless, they produce real leaves within days.

Especially on our way back the wash was a bit muddy and stuck to our soles.

Temperature: 66, sunny, after about 0.5" in the area, no wind.

Bloom: Not bad for the area and time of year, 25 different plants in bloom


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December/21/2023 Arroyo Salado North Fork Mile 36.9

 We haven't hiked in this area for a long time. We did a larger loop in 1 hour 40 minutes.
Before the storm, this seemed to be a safe bet and it was sunny.
It's very scenic, but we hardly found any blooming plants.

We had some time to look for Pilostyles thurberi | Thurber's pilostyles and found two hosts with flowering plants.

Temperature: 64, mostly sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Very low, 13 different plants in bloom


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December/20/2023 First-Second-Third Crossing

 A follow-up to our hike on the 17th of November
The creek is still flowing at First Crossing.

We skipped the creek for a couple of years because the bloom wasn't interesting, now the bloom variety is back.

I wrote that Bloom could get better and it did, there are 13 more plants in bloom.
Bloom is best just before Second Crossing and between Second and the closed gate.

This is our best recorded bloom of the season.

The bad: Many of the plants in bloom are non-native and invasive.

Temperature: 72, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Moderate, diverse, over 63 different plants in bloom


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December/19/2023 : View of badlands wash loop

 We took an alternate route and shortened the hike to just over 3 hours.

Both Psorothamnus spinosus | Smoketree and Psorothamnus schottii | Indigo Bush are somewhat in bloom with Cuscuta psorothamnensis | Indigo Bush Dodder on both plants.

A surprise, no Xylorhiza orcuttii, Orcutt's aster in bloom.
There is no real best bloomer, it might be Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed.
Bloom diminishes considerably at the top of the hike.

Temperature: 65-74, mostly sunny with a slight breeze out of the washes.

Bloom: Not bad, 30 different plants in bloom.


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December/18/2023 : Arroyo Salado Loop

 When we drove down the Arroyo Salado a few weeks ago, it didn't look good.
On foot in the drainages, there is even germination closer to Santa Rosa Mountain.

A large number of flowering Nicotiana obtusifolia | Desert tobacco.
And even a Langloisia setosissima setosissima | Bristly Langloisia and an Eriogonum trichopes | Little Desert Trumpet.

It was cool to see the ants removing the seeds from Tidestromia suffruticosa oblongifolia | Arizona honeysweet.

Now we are wondering why we found so many first year Senegalia greggii | Catclaw Acacia here and none in Culp Valley where the plant is abundant.

The best flowering plant: Xylorhiza orcuttii, Orcutt's aster.

Temperature: 70, cloudy, no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, 29 different plants in bloom.


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December/16/2023 : Culp Valley - Wilson Trail

 This looks like an in and out hike, but in reality it's not as we hike on different sides of the canyon with different plants.

We often find a lot of Tribulus terrestris | Puncture Vine fruit on our shoes, now we found the actual site, closer to our car, hundreds of dried plants.
In the lower part of the hike there are an unusual number of large Cucurbita palmata | Coyote melon in fruit.

The best find, two location with blooming Monardella linoides linoides | Narrow leaf monardella and Ehrendorferia chrysantha | Golden ear drops.

The best bloomers: Eriogonum | Buckwheat (end of bloom), Rhus ovata | Sugar bush (beginning of bloom).
Temperature: 54-66, a thin cloud cover at the start, sunny on our return, no wind.

Bloom: Not bad, 34 different plants in bloom.


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December/15/2023 : Oil Well Wash Loop

 On our last visit to the lower part of this wash we found a good number of Eriogonum deserticola.
Now we wanted to follow the same wash on the other side of the 78 to see how many Eriogonum deserticola were there.
It turns out that this is the densest and probably largest population around the Anza Borrego Desert, we estimate hundreds of plants.

We are puzzled by the lack of diversity and the presence of so many Eriogonum deserticola, which are otherwise a rare find.
Another puzzle, the many well flowering Larrea tridentata | creosote bushes that are out of flower in the rest of the desert.
One guess is the access to a good groundwater source.

This is an off road area with many no off road signs, which are ignored by far too many people.
As expected, we encountered no off road vehicles on our hike, as this is a rather remote area with no off road opportunities.

For a while we followed an animal track, we had no idea what it was.
The sand must be perfect for recording the tracks.
Suddenly we found the track maker, an Aphonopelma eutylenum | California Ebony Tarantula, we stopped it in it's track.

Temperature: 72, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Very low, except for the hundreds of blooming Eriogonum deserticola, 13 different plants in bloom.


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December/14/2023 : Blackwood basin wash

 By far the most common and best flowering plant is Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy.
Followed at a considerable distance by Isocoma acradenia eremophila, which is at the very end of the bloom.
Geraea canescens | Desert sunflower should be in the list but isn't as we found it sparsely.

The main population of Psorothamnus spinosus, smoketree, is at the top of the wash with many mature plants mixed with plants of all ages, starting with a few months old.

The bad:
We found several larger flowering Tamarix ramosissima | Tamarisk in the wash.
The single Athel Tamarisk | Tamarix aphylla, has grown considerably in almost 8 years.

The drive is long and bumpy, we definitely need rain to smooth out the wash.
We entered the hike from the top, that's always the best way, now the loop road was blocked for us, with a lot of rocks.

Temperature: 70, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Moderate for the area and time of year, diversity good with 42 different plants in bloom.


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December/12/2023 : Culp Valley - Wilson Trail 2

 Flowers seem to be in better bloom on this side of Culp Valley.
This is one of the best cross-country hikes in Culp Valley.
More than ten years after the fire, things are almost back to normal.

The best bloomers: all kinds of Eriogonum | buckwheat and Ribes indecorum | white flowering currant.
Less common to find in bloom at this time of year: Ehrendorferia chrysantha | Golden ear drops, Chaenactis glabriuscula glabriuscula | Yellow pincushion, and Keckiella antirrhinoides microphylla | Little leaf chaparral beard tongue.

Along the Wilson Trail, an unusual number (20) of flowering Penstemon centranthifolius | Scarlet bugler line the trail.

We don't see deer (Odocoileus hemionus fuliginatus) very often, now we saw 3.

Bloom: Not bad, 36 different plants in bloom.


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December/10/2023 : Bitter Creek South Fork

 It's been a while since we've visited Bitter Creek, and now is probably not the best time.

Smaller canyons are infested with dense mustard skeletons and the main canyon is one of the most infested with Tamarix ramosissima | Tamarisk.
The man-made spring higher up the slope is now the best source of water, but as with most springs, plant diversity is low.

Temperature: 50-66, sunny, with a light breeze at the end and out of the canyon.

Bloom: Very low, 27 different plants in bloom.


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December/09/2023 : Agua Caliente Airport Loop

 We intended to hike a slightly different route, but while following the hundreds (> 200, maybe 400) Olneya tesota | Ironwood, we ended up a bit further south.
As expected, the washes look dry, but the Olneya tesota | Ironwood look much better than on our trip December 24, 2018.

Best blooming plant : Justicia californica | Chuparosa.

Temperature: 65 at the end of our hike, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Low, 20 different plants in bloom.


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December/08/2023 : San Sebastian Marsh West

 The first stretch is rather barren until we reach a wash, where we took a slightly different route and found one of the densest washes with Eriogonum deserticola | Dune Buckwheat.

The creek is intermittently dry or a small stream, close to the creek nothing grows except the thousands of Tamarix ramosissima | Tamarisk.
On the banks next to the creek there are many flowering plants like Abronia villosa villosa | Desert sand verbena and Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small flowered trailing windmills, most of them still very fresh looking.

This time we went a bit further than the original route, 3 3/4 hours in total, beyond the original route the plants were much better.

Here we go back in time and find many good flowering Datura discolor | Desert Thorn Apple.

We found Lycium bushes in bloom, both were not textbook plants, the Lycium brevipes brevipes looked like a cross with Lycium fremontii, which we also found in bloom today.

Curious Psorothamnus spinosus | Smoketree is present by the thousands, hard to find a place with so many Psorothamnus spinosus, but no plants older than a few years, mostly first year plants.

This is a place with a lot of Euphorbia | Spurge, with hundreds of Euphorbia abramsiana | Abrams' Spurge.

We started to remove Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard, but soon realized it was useless.

Luckily there was no dust fog after the strong wind last night.
Temperature: Low seventies, sunny.

Bloom: Good for the area and time of year, 34 different plants in bloom.


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December/06/2023 The Slab - Culp Valley Loop

 On our last trip in December 2021 along this route we found almost no flowering plants.

This time we were expecting a low bloom, but things looked good from the start, with almost all Acmispon glaber brevialatus | Shortwing deerweed in good bloom.
There were also many blooming Encelia actoni | Acton's brittlebush and Eriogonum fasciculatum polifolium | California buckwheat.
That said, many plants are at the very end of their bloom, others like Eriophyllum confertiflorum confertiflorum | Golden Yarrow and Ribes quercetorum | Oak Gooseberry are at the beginning.

We weren't expecting spring annuals, but we found Amsinckia tessellata tessellata | Bristly Fiddleneck, Phacelia distans | Common Phacelia and Eriastrum eremicum eremicum | Desert Woolly Star.

The best finds, some unexpected blooming Monardella linoides linoides | Narrow-leaved Monardella and Erigeron foliosus foliosus | Leafy daisy.

After reaching 20 flowering plants, we expected to find no more, but we kept adding unexpected flowering plants.

Temperature: 60-70, sunny with a slight breeze.

Bloom: Spotty, some plants good, 49 different plants in bloom, many at the very end of bloom.


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December/05/2023 Culp Valley Springs

 It's warm, so we went up to Culp Valley.
We skipped the springs for a few years because we went too often.

All these years we've never seen a Washingtonia filifera | California fan palm, now we found one hidden in the deep dry pond.
There is water in several places and a flowing stream over a hundred meters long.

Along the walls closer to the S22 there are large fields of dead, most likely Brassica tournefortii | Sahara mustard;Asian mustard.

Finally we went to the Paroli Homestead and found an almost 3 meter tall Cylindropuntia ganderi ganderi | Gander's cholla and a nice red Pistacia chinensis | Chinese pistache that we've missed all these years.

The temperature: 64-68, sunny, no wind
Bloom: Moderate around the many springs and seeps, 35 different plants in bloom

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December/04/2023 Pumpkin Patch Loop - Thule Eriogonum Loop

 A car hike tour. Down Arroyo Salada bloom is very low.
We crossed to Tule Wash, here the bloom was a bit better with good blooming Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster.
Just before the Pumpkin Patch we started our Badlands Loop, which we last hiked in 2011.
This hike is in the Anza Borrego Desert Wilderness, but tire tracks went just past the sign.
A long time ago I wrote, "Surprisingly, we found the highest concentration of desert lily here," which probably isn't true, but we did find the highest number of leaves of the season.

We were puzzled by the high number of blooming Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown eyed primrose.
One of the best flowering plants in the area Psorothamnus emoryi emoryi | Emory's Indigo Bush, often quite large plants.
Here we found the first flowering Atriplex hymenelytra | Desert holly of the season.

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We continued our drive down Tule Wash up to Thule Eriogonum Loop
Here the bloom is even lower.
We came to see the blooming Eriogonum deserticola | Dune Buckwheat and were afraid they would be washed away.
Some of the Eriogonum deserticola are gone, but we found a few large blooming plants.
There are a few seeps with running water, but almost nothing will grow except Washingtonia filifera | California fan palm, tule and saltgrass, not a single annual in the water.

We went back north on the Pole Line Road and headed up the Arroyo Salada, a much more difficult wash to drive in, the off-roaders made deep gullies.
This was our first time in this part of the Arroyo Salada and we finally found out why it's called Salada, here we found some seeps with a lot of salt and white looking sand/stone.
I had enough of this interesting wash and we escaped by using the Cross Over Trail to the S22.

It's been a while since we've seen flies, but here they went after the car and didn't want to leave.

The temperature: Low 70s by the end of our hike, mostly sunny

Bloom: Low, we still found 20 different plants in bloom.


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December/02/2023 Ash Wash East loop

 The goal of the day is to find some fresh Pilostyles thurberi | Thurber's Pilostyles, it's been a while since we actively looked for them as it takes a lot of time to inspect the plants.

The creek is still flowing at the beginning of the hike.

In retrospect it was a harder hike than expected after the long hike yesterday, short with 2 1/2 hours but enough rocks and boulders.

Still blooming Baccharis brachyphylla, an easy to miss plant when not in flower or fruit.
There are a lot of Baccharis brachyphylla along the whole route.

The big surprise, flowering Pilostyles thurberi | Thurber's pilostyles, we didn't expect them to flower this early in the season.
An infected host plant with dozens of fresh Pilostyles thurberi.
Eventually the host will die, but this one looked fine.

The temperature: A nice 70 at the end of our hike, sunny with a light breeze.

Bloom: Not bad for the area and time of year, 38 different plants in bloom.


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December/01/2023 Crazycline Gypsum Peak loop

 Over the years we have found several Petalonyx linearis | Narrow Leaf Sandpaper plants.
One year they were suddenly gone, but now the perennials are back.
This is the only place in the Anza Borrego Desert where the plants survive the summer.

There are no gypsum-specific plants here, but some plants thrive in gypsum like nowhere else.
Like Peucephyllum schottii | Pygmy Cedar, we found hundreds of small plants, some germinated after the August 2023 rain.
Doing better than usual: Eriogonum deflexum deflexum | Flat topped buckwheat, Johnstonella racemosa | Bushy cryptantha and Argemone munita | Prickly poppy.

Even without plants, this is one of the most scenic hikes around. There are excellent views in all directions.

The downside is that it's a long hike; it took us 5 1/2 hours, with lots of climbing, rocks, and boulders.

The temperature: A nice 69 at the end of our hike, sunny with a light breeze.

Bloom: Good for the area and time of year, 35 different plants in bloom.


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November/29/2023 San Felipe Borrego Sink Loop

 The aim today was to check on the baby Olneya tesota | Ironwood that germinated in 2022.
So far we have not found any small Olneya tesota on any of our trips until today, when we found 2 plants that survived the summer.

We did find a few Psorothamnus spinosus | Smoketree that were somewhat in flower.
The best flowering plant was Ditaxis neomexicana | New Mexico Ditaxis. The most visible flowering plant Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster.

The temperature: A nice 69 at the end of our hike, sunny with a light breeze.

Bloom: Very low, but we still found 21 different plants in bloom.


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November/28/2023 Diablo Dieguenos Loop

 We wanted to hike the upper part of the loop, so we had to drive up Diablo Canyon and exit on the Diablo Drop off "road".
Along the way, part of the canyon walls collapsed in a dozen places, at one point in two days, and we were the first to make the "road" passable again.
One place was a bit tricky, but the car passed it without any problems.
Now Diable Canyon is deserted, but on most weekends this is a popular route to Fish Creek Wash.

The total time to get to the trailhead and back was about the same as our 3 1/2 hour hike.

Diablo Canyon is surprisingly good, lots of germination and flowering plants, much better than the barren looking Vallecito Wash.

The area is certainly one of the best you can find right now.

The most common plant is Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy, which covers many canyon walls, sometimes all the way to the top.
The Perityle emoryi aren't in full bloom yet, some are already very large.

For the first time this season we found a blooming Eriogonum thomasii | Thomas's buckwheat.
The number of Aliciella latifolia latifolia is high compared to our other hikes.

The temperature: A nice 67 at the end of our hike, almost no wind.

Bloom: Good for the area and time of year, 29+ different plants in bloom.


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November/27/2023 Tarantula wash San Felipe creek loop

 We started at the alternative route, which starts along the very bumpy Pole Line Road aka Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail.

It looks bleak, only 3 flowering plants in the first half hour.
Until we hit the Fish Creek / Carrizo Wash, more flowering plants left and right.

The Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small flowered trailing windmill plants grow incredibly large in this area, reaching a few meters in size.
The timing of the rains seems to be good for Chylismia cardiophylla cardiophylla | Heart leaf suncup, as we are finding many large plants on many of our hikes.
Here we found the first flowering Astragalus crotalariae | Salton milkvetch of the season.

We expected to find dried-out Euphorbia abramsiana, but the plants look much fresher and some are still in bloom.

All the creeks along the trail are dry.

The bad, part of the hike is in a nature reserve, but off-road tracks are everywhere.

Temperature: A nice 70 degrees at the end of our hike, hardly any wind.

Bloom: Not bad spotty, 38+ different plants in bloom.


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November/25/2023 Mile 14.9 Pacific Crest Loop

 Tom Chester asked us about a circular tree formation, so this is a hike to check it out.
We checked 2 sites and both turned out to be dominated by large Prosopis glandulosa torreyana | Honey mesquite.

Previously, we didn't make any iNaturalist records for Juniperus californica | California juniper on this loop, probably because it is very common and the dominant tree/shrub in this area.
Today we paid more attention to Juniperus californica and noticed that almost every single tree looked different.

The area is growing back nicely more than 10 years after the 2012 fire, especially the cacti which are a problem when hiking.

Temperatures in the high fifties, no wind in the canyons, but windy and colder along the PCT.

Bloom: Low, 18+ different plants in bloom.


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November/24/2023 Ironwood wash Loop

 The goal was to see if we could find any Olneya tesota | Ironwood seedlings from last year.
We didn't find any young Olneya tesota trees.

The best flowering larger plant on our hike was Chylismia cardiophylla cardiophylla | Heart leaf suncup (50+).
That might have been Ericameria paniculata a few weeks ago.

The timing of the rains seems to be right for Agave deserti deserti | Desert agave to trigger a year-end bloom.
Here we found 20+ Agave deserti deserti in bloom and this was happening all over the desert.

Temperature: 64 degrees, 50% sun and a light breeze.
No rain, although we did get a little rain at the Scissors Crossing on the way in.

Bloom: Low abundance, 45+ different plants in bloom.


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November/22/2023 Algodones Dunes

 We parked at two places, once in the east, the free parking area and at the view point.

The August rain was almost 3 months ago, but these sand dunes can absorb water like the best.
Seeing all the freshly blooming Pectis papposa papposa | Chinch weed, it's like going back in time for a month or two.

The most spectacular and sometimes the only plants in the dunes are the Eriogonum deserticola | Dune Buckwheat in full bloom.
Perhaps the most abundant flowering plants are Palafoxia arida | Spanish needles, already large, in time perhaps even large enough for var. gigantea.

Another spectacular bloomer, in small numbers Helianthus niveus tephrodes | Algodones Dune Sunflower.

This is a different habitat for Parkinsonia florida | Blue palo verde, they sure like it out here, wandering far into the sand dunes.
The number of Parkinsonia florida that have germinated by the end of the year is staggering, thousands of baby plants.

A lot of plants out here look weird compared to the same plants in the Anza Borrego desert, a better habitat makes plants grow bigger.

Bloom: Moderate, 30+ different plants in bloom, some areas will probably get a little better, some areas are at the end of bloom.


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November/21/2023 Fish Creek Mud Hills Loop

 This area has been on our list for years because it was difficult to create a loop hike.
We managed to create a nice, very scenic route if you like mud hills and great views.
Even after months without rain, at one point where the water had pooled, I sank way too fast and deep into the mud, so we had to make a detour, which turned out to be relatively easy.

Flowering is spotty, surprisingly concentrated on the ridges and some mud hills.
On the shell layers fields of Dalea mollissima | Downy dalea.

Blooming Geraea canescens | Desert sunflower are common, as are Langloisia setosissima setosissima | Bristly langloisia and Phacelia crenulata ambigua | Notch leaf phacelia.
Less common are Chylismia claviformis peirsonii | Brown-eyed primrose, Eriogonum trichopes | Little desert trumpet, and Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave wild buckwheat.

Bloom is waning, almost 3 months after the rain.

Bloom: Low, sometimes good for the area and time of year.


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November/20/2023 Jacumba Jim Canyon

 Along the S2 it gets greener after the Indian Gorge Exit, lots of blooming Datura discolor | Desert thorn apple.

The Carrizo Canyon Road, is sandy, but that is a good sign, because sand covers rocks.
We made it to the trailhead without any problems, the unmaintained "road" is in reasonable shape, it's always unpredictable what to expect from the "road".

The first stretch is Horsfordia newberryi | Newberry's velvet mallow territory, hundreds of plants, most in bud, unfortunately we are too early in the day for prime bloom today.

This is one of the few canyons with a creek, right now it's just a tiny stream.
As the canyon narrows and gets wetter, Prosopis glandulosa torreyana | Honey mesquite makes hiking in the canyon very unappealing.
It takes an hour one way to get to the accessible, drier part of the canyon.
Here blooming Deinandra floribunda | Tecate tarplant made our day, we've never seen it before and didn't expect to find any new plants this year.

In the canyon there are very good looking Washingtonia filifera | California fan palms and frogs.

Bloom: Low, about 15 different plants.


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November/18/2023 Bisnaga east

 As expected the area looks very dry, Justicia californica | Chuparosa has started the end of the year bloom, most Justicia californica were showing moderate to low bloom.
The smell of Bursera microphylla, Elephant Tree is overwhelming. Now we wonder if the trees were in flower 2 months ago.

Another highlight was a solitary Carlowrightia arizonica | Arizona Carlowrightia that we haven't seen for a long time.

The weather was fine, 70 degrees and sunny with sometimes a light breeze. In the Laguna Mountains and all the way to town it was completely cloudy, with some light rain at Scissors Crossing.

Bloom: Very low.


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November/17/2023 First-Second-Third Crossing

 No water at zero crossing, plenty at First Crossing and a good flow at Second Crossing, but the crossing isn't as deep as it used to be.
The gate before Third Crossing is closed and may stay closed for a long time. There's a lot of erosion and rocks and a creek on the road doesn't help, it doesn't look like an easy fix.
This is good for hiking because it's really peaceful out here without the cars.

The creek has changed course dramatically and is now partially on the "road" on the east side of the canyon.
At the third crossing the creek has disappeared and moved to the other side.
Thousands of plants that need the creek will die because the creek is gone, this has happened before and plants will regrow quickly.
For botanists this is a good thing, a possibility for new plants and to be able to hike along the creek.

Between the first and second crossing, just after the first crossing, there is much more pooling water than in previous years.
It's been pretty uninteresting along the creek for a couple of years, this season that's changed, more room for different plants to grow.
This may be the best year-end bloom we've had so far this season.

Bloom: Moderate, more than 50 different plants in bloom, bloom could get better.


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November/15/2023 Lute Fault Scarp

 There are a surprising number of large flowering Asclepias subulata in the drainages.
Along the Santa Rosa slope there are many patches of Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small flowering trailing windmills, many still in good bloom.
There must be thousands of Boerhavia spiderling on the same slope, many brown, but a surprisingly high number still in bloom.

In Rattle Snake Wash there are probably hundreds of one-year-old Parkinsonia florida | Blue palo verde that survived the summer.

On the shadow side of the Lute Fault Scarp, the walls are full of Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy.

The Psorothamnus emoryi emoryi | Emory's indigo bush has been blooming for months and can be smelled from a few meters away.

Throughout the sandy area there are thousands of rodent burrows, the tunnel area is vast and makes hiking unpredictable, you never know when you will sink, but you certainly will many times.
In this sandy area there isn't much flowering, but it is covered with brown and brittle Kallstroemia californica | California caltrop.

Temperature: 62- 72, mostly cloudy, no wind.

Bloom: Low, just over 20 different plants in bloom, often only a single plant.


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November/14/2023 Palomar Mountain: Doane Valley loop

 With the help of Tom Chester, we determined that the largest stand of Pinus ponderosa was on Palomar Mountain.
Pinus ponderosa is often confused with Pinus jeffreyi.

On our trip we found that the things that separate them are Cone size, inside cone color, inside bark color, bark odor (turpentine 2 trees).
Not helpful: How prickly the cones are (both are very prickly), tree/leaf color, vegetative buds white hairs/resinous.
Seeds not checked yet.

On the way back to the car we found a Pinus ponderosa only 5 minutes from the car, so there are certainly more trees out here.

Flowering is low, but we found several flowering Monardella breweri lanceolata, Lessingia glandulifera glandulifera and Keckiella ternata ternata.

The number of insects was much lower than on our previous visit, about 1/4 of the hike they were annoying and one insect bit us.

Temperature: 60, sunny, no wind.

Bloom: Low.


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November/13/2023 Pena Spring - California Loop

 Wandering without a clear route.

The rain is too long ago, the Pena artesian spring, which often flows from a pipe, is dry.
There is still some moisture in the many seeps of the Pena spring, just enough for the bees.
Bees were the real danger on this hike, we were both attracted and stung by bees, luckily they didn't follow us too far.

In all the drainages where we often find water higher up in the canyon there is almost none left, certainly not enough for the blooming Mimulus guttatus we were hoping to see.

We did find at least two surviving and flowering Malacothamnus enigmaticus.

In one of the drainages the plants were happier than anywhere else, here we found a blooming Diplacus longiflorus.
Although we hiked by chance, we found the same plant on a previous hike.
Unfortunately, there are several blooming Pennisetum setaceum | Fountain grass at this site, which we also found a few years ago.
The best was a single blooming Keckiella antirrhinoides microphylla.
In the same drainage the largest and best flowering Senecio flaccidus monoensis.

We are finding an unusually high number of Cuscuta californica californica this season.
There are more Amaranthus fimbriatus | Fringed Amaranth in Culp Valley this year than we remember from previous years.

Temperature: 68, sunny, later mostly sunny.

Bloom: Low, not bad for the time of year, more than 25 different plants in bloom.


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November/11/2023 Sunset Trail - Big Laguna Trail Loop

 The story begins with a Pinus ponderosa at the north end of the Lagunas, the only tree approved by a trusted botanist.
We almost went to that location, it was in the middle of nowhere, that was suspicious.
It turned out that the tree was much further south along the Sunset Trail.
We later learned that there is no Pinus ponderosa in the Lagunas.

The goal was to find Quercus × morehus | Oracle Oak, and we found two.
Along the way we checked and photographed Pinus jeffreyi | Jeffrey Pine for our next trip to see Pinus ponderosa.

It's Veterans Weekend, as a bonus there's free parking on the downside it's very busy, something different from the normal low to zero hiker routes.

One hiker was in a hurry to get to the other side and told us there might be a fire, she noticed dark smoke.
This is how a panic starts, other hikers also hurried back.
There was no smoke anywhere, no sirens, no helicopters, just the desert dust below in the Anza Borrego Desert.

Temperature: 48-55, sunny with a breeze around the lake, mostly pleasant.

Bloom: Very low.


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November/10/2023 Camel Head Wash East loop

 This is unusual Musca domestica | Common House Fly again, we've never seen them here in such high numbers.
The flies were hitchhiking on our backpack and hat, they mostly stayed there for the ride.

But flies seem to indicate rain and it certainly looks good.
The mud hills are alive with an abundance of Geraea canescens | Desert Sunflower, a much better than average bloom of Eriogonum trichopes | Little Desert Trumpet and Phacelia crenulata ambigua | Notch Leaf Phacelia.
And we even found Langloisia setosissima setosissima | Bristly Langloisia and Chaenactis carphoclinia carphoclinia | Pebble pincushion in bloom.

Once on the mesa things changed, some time ago a large area was covered with blooming Pectis papposa papposa | Chinch weed, Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small flowered trailing windmills and Kallstroemia californica | California caltrop.
Some of these are still in bloom at the moment.

Most of the other flowering plants are in the links.

It's Veterans Weekend, so it was unusually busy for a Friday.

Temperature: 76 at the end of the hike.

Bloom: Good for the area and time of year.


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November/08/2023 Santa Ysabel & Ranchita

 We went on a car/hiking tour. First stop Barrel Spring parking to check on a suspected Amaranthus hybridus and we think the ID is correct, we found a few plants in the area.

Next stop is Oak Territory along 79, which has a very diverse number of oaks in a compact area.
We wanted to see and photograph Quercus × ganderi | Gander Oak, best checked in fall as it seems to be evergreen.

Last stop Santa Ysabel Creek, here we found a strong flowing creek with enough interesting (flowering) plants.
We added some new plants to our list.

On the way back, along the road, a very green spot with interesting non-native plants like Amaranthus palmeri | Palmer's Amaranth and Sorghum halepense | Johnson Grass.

Bloom: Not bad along the creek.


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November/07/2023 Buck Canyon

 Our goal today was to look for Pinus ponderosa from a voucher in the area.
We spotted some trees high up in a rocky drainage that we had to check out.

After a lot of scrambling up the sometimes steep rocky drainage we decided that they were almost all Pinus coulteri.
The good thing is that this is prime terrain for Ericameria cuneata spathulata, many of which are still in flower.

Temperature: 56 - 62, a slight breeze.

Bloom: Low.


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November/06/2023 Stonewall Peak Loop2

 The nights are getting colder and the leaves are turning yellow.
This is a new loop for us, so we mostly hiked. A great loop to do again in the spring.
Part of the loop, if not most, is a shared horse trail and more dusty than usual.

The best bloomer along most of the hike is Eriastrum sapphirinum sapphirinum | Sapphire Woolly Star.

Temperature: 62 - 72.

Bloom: Low, ≈ 20 different plants in bloom.


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November/03/2023 Lake Henshaw

 It was cold but sunny, so it felt like 70 in the sun.
Many plants seemed to be damaged by frost.

This was our last chance to find new plants in the area and we did.
Temperature: 42 - 80.

Bloom: Low.


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November/01/2023 Elephant Knees South Loop

 We haven't hiked this loop since 2015, so it's long overdue.

The "Foot Travel Only" sign is gone, and off-roaders have gone into the wash, driving over the pristine mud hills and doing doughnuts.

The many Lycium fremontii | Fremont's desert thorn in the Mud Hills Wash look good, some are still in bloom.
New Lycium fremontii appear whenever roots are exposed.

There are more Hoffmannseggia microphylla | Hoffmannseggia in the wash than before, many in flower, most in fruit.

Tidestromia suffruticosa oblongifolia | Arizona honeysweet are very green and most are in bloom.

The area is basically divided into badlands, mud hills that are often too toxic to grow much, and the brown, often meter-thick shell layer, or what's left of it, that is much more suitable for plant life.

On the shell layers, often sloping, you can find large fields of Dalea mollissima | Downy Dalea.
The mud hills are home to Eriogonum trichopes | Little desert trumpet, Eriogonum ordii | Fort Mohave wild buckwheat, Chorizanthe rigida | Devil's spineflower, and Geraea canescens | Desert sunflower.
Eriogonum ordii is easily overlooked as it looks very similar to Eriogonum trichopes.
We even found some Chorizanthe rigida in bloom, which is rare this time of year.

In the washes there is much more life, like huge patches of Allionia incarnata | small flowered trailing windmills following the washes.

Suddenly on a mud hill with hundreds of flowering Eriogonum trichopes mixed with Eriogonum ordii.
We only realized we had found Eriogonum ordii when we checked a solitary plant, the identification is easy, by leaf color/shape, stem hairs and by the white in the tiny flower.

Along our entire route, many Geraea canescens | desert sunflower in bloom, but certainly past their prime.

This is such an interesting hike that it would be a great hike even without the flowers.

We didn't count the flowers, but from our pictures and memory we found close to 50 blooming plants.
In this area, such a good bloom would have been a great spring bloom.

Temperature: 60 - 81.

Bloom: Good to very good, for the time of year and location.


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October/31/2023 Dump Wash Loop

 A new hike in the Borrego Badlands.
The planned route didn't work out as expected, I forgot how steep these washes are.
The views along the rim are spectacular, but there is no easy way down.
Strangely enough, this was the only place we found spring annuals today, right on the narrow ridge.

The plants didn't look bad, and we added a few Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's woody aster that we hadn't seen before.

Temperature: 55 - 77.

Bloom: Low.


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October/30/2023 Bighorn Canyon - Blue Spring - Nolina Canyon Loop

 The goal of the day was to photograph the Epilobium canum garrettii | Garrett's California Fuchsia in bloom.
We didn't have many photos of this variation, so this was the time.

Bloom is low, but it doesn't feel that way because there are so many Ericameria paniculata | Blackbanded rabbitbrush and Epilobium canum blooming.

Germination is absent in the Bighorn wash, but present for a few hundred meters in the Nolina wash.

Along our route, but especially in Nolina Canyon, walls were covered with Allionia incarnata incarnata | Small flowering trailing windmills, many still in good bloom.

The crossing from Bighorn Canyon to Nolina Canyon is a climb, this time we took a new route to the east, which turned out to be much easier.
Still, this was our longest hike of the season at 4 hours and 40 minutes.

In Borrego Springs there was a lot of ground fog, dust from the wind and the off-roaders and maybe some moisture from the Salton Sea.
The fog was completely gone by 2 pm.

Temperature a cool 40 - 74, very pleasant.

Bloom: Low.


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October/28/2023 Mason Valley Salt Creek Loop

 We now entered "Park 2" much closer to the forks we wanted to visit.
There was a good bloom after this year's monsoon rains, we now see the last blooming Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed.
The Gutierrezia sarothrae | Matchweed bloom is a bit better, but certainly at the end of its bloom.

After the fire we found thousands of germinating Argemone munita | Prickly Poppy, to our surprise not a single living plant remains, we did find a few fresh basal leaves.

At the Allium marvinii drainage we found only an amazing amount of dried Centaurea melitensis | Tocalote and recognizable dried Allium marvinii.

The best bloomer, probably just starting to bloom, was Malacothamnus enigmaticus | Enigmatic Bushmallow, but only a few in this fork.
We visited a fork further west where we've never been before and found a much larger number of flowering and healthy looking Malacothamnus enigmaticus, certainly in the hundreds.
This new fork is certainly worth a visit next year, if we get some rain.

Bloom: Very low.


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October/27/2023 Azalea Glen Loop

 We've been trying to find Euonymus occidentalis parishii | Parish's Burning Bush in this area, now we knew what to look for and we finally found one in fruit.
Another plant on our list was Perideridia parishii latifolia | Sierra yampah and we are pretty sure that we found the plants, hopefully in bloom next year.
On our trip we found some interesting Carex plants. The bad thing is that plant removal here is pretty brutal, of course we need a passable trail.

We found at least 7 blooming Penstemon heterophyllus, more than on our last trip here.

What a surprise to find a blooming Frangula californica tomentella.

Temperature: 58 when we started and 64 3 1/2 hours later.

Bloom: Low.


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October/25/2023 Palm Spring Loop

 It's been too warm to visit the badlands often, but that will change when the temperature drops enough.
The hike is short, so we added an extra loop for a 3 1/2 hour hike.

Things look much better than average, as expected Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed is way past peak bloom.
Perityle emoryi | Emory's rockdaisy is covering areas around the wash and should be in full bloom soon.

We were surprised and pleased to find two Mentzelia involucrata in bloom, normal plants, certainly not the huge ones we found last year.
On our route we found one Chylismia claviformis peirsonii in bloom and another one close to bloom.

On the extra loop we found several blooming Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed and best of all a rare white Xylorhiza orcuttii | Orcutt's Woody Aster, the second time we found white flowering plants after seeing well over 10,000 plants.

In the Vallecito Wash and probably all over the desert Ericameria paniculata | Blackbanded rabbitbrush are starting their year-end bloom.

Temperature: 62 when we started and 82 3 1/2 hours later.

Bloom: Moderate for the time of year, better than average.


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October/24/2023 Cuyamaca Lake Trail

 We've never hiked around the lake before.

The bloom is very low, better around the lake.

We added two plants we've never seen before: Centaurea stoebe australis | spotted starthistle and Alisma triviale | water plantain.

Temperature: A huge drop, 50 when we started and 64 when we returned, perfect in sunny weather.

Bloom: Low, but interesting.


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October/22/2023 Johnson Canyon - PCT - California - Loop

 Since we found the shortcut, that is our favorite route. It doesn't look bad, the Adenostoma sparsifolium | Red shank are green and we were really surprised to find a lot of them in bloom.

We no longer had any good Sporobolus cryptandrus | Sand dropseed photos, here we found a whole bunch of fresh plants.
Like here, there are more Mirabilis multiflora pubescens | Giant four o'clock at the end of this year than we remember from any other year.

This is the first time we found water in Johnson Canyon and probably because of that, the best find of the day, a plants we only hoped to find Erythranthe parishii | parish's monkeyflower.

Temperature: 60 when we arrived and 71, just over 3 hours later, 91 at Borrego Springs.

Bloom: Low, but interesting.


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October/21/2023 Santa Ysabel Coast to Crest Trail east

 The goal of the day, to check on the Salvia clevelandii | Cleveland Sage that Tom Chester and Don had posted on iNaturalist.
The plant at the Nature Center was in full bloom, which was hopeful.
In the wild, the hundreds of plants are long past bloom.

We connected our Coast to Crest Trail to our Santa Ysabel East Loop, completing the entire short Coast to Crest Trail in Santa Ysabel.

One of the other highlights, two blooming Antirrhinum nuttallianum | Nuttall's snapdragon and several plants along the San Diego River, which is actually a small creek.

Temperature: 66 on arrival and 84, 3 1/2 hours later, 100 at Borrego Springs.

Bloom: Low, better around the "river".


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October/20/2023 Palomar Mnt: Boucher, Thunder Spring Silvercrest Trail

 It started with small insects circling us, we waved most of the way.

The views on the trail are spectacular and we were lucky to be here on one of the clearest days.
We visited the Fire Lookout and you can see for an amazing 70 miles.

It's amazing to see so many flowers still in bloom and some plants we've never seen before.

There was no one around, except the fishermen around the pond.

Temperature: 69 on arrival and 79, 3 1/2 hours later, 103 at Borrego Springs.
Low of 55 was at Lake Henshaw.

Bloom: Seems a little greener than average, low with a surprisingly good variety.


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October/17/2023 Lake Henshaw

 We had no idea if we would be able to enter the two routes we had planned.
The northern entrance along the Lake Henshaw Truck Road seemed to be OK, a closed gate with no readable text entering the Cleveland National Forest.
We could get to the lake shore without much trouble.
This was the most interesting part, as we found many new plants, over a dozen, YES.

We spent half an hour while hiking to remove all the nasty fruits of Bidens frondosa | Devil's Beggarticks.

The second entry was further south at a phone booth with an entry OK sign.
This brought us directly to the goal of the day, a reported Baccharis pilularis.
A big disappointment, no way the plant reported in 2022 was dead, probably too long above the waterline.

We added a few new plants here as well.

Temperature: fifties on arrival and 85 about 3 hours later.

Bloom: Interesting for botanist.


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October/16/2023 Big Laguna - PCT - Red-Tailed Roost Loop

 A nice and varied loop with lots of shade and a better bloom than last year.

Flower of the day, the pretty Juncus longistylis.

Temperature: 70 on arrival and 74, 4 hours later, 100 in Borrego Springs.

Bloom: Normal low, with a good variation.


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October/14/2023 Little Clark dry lake loop

 On the spur road Pectis papposa papposa | Chinch weed is still alive.
Not much in bloom at our parking spot.
From the parking spot up to Rattle Snake Wash, bloom is poor, but exceptionally good for some, such as Psorothamnus emoryi emoryi | Emory's Indigo Bush and Ambrosia dumosa | Burrobush.
The number of dead perennials here is greater than the number of good looking living perennials.

Near the lake, a variety of green grasses around the rocks and Asclepias subulata | Rush Milkweed in full bloom, as good as it gets.
In the flooded areas (now dry) there were hundreds if not thousands of Sphaeralcea angustifolia | Narrow-leaf globemallow and probably the same number of Euphorbia abramsiana | Abrams' spurge, the latter often in large mats.

The flooded areas should soon be covered by already growing Brassica tournefortii | Sahara Mustard; Asian Mustard.

At the lake itself, almost nothing grows.

The last photo of Abronia villosa villosa near the car looks great, but it might be the only spot with more than one flowering plant.

Temperatures 62 at the start and 82 3 hours later and rising fast.
This may be our last low desert hike for a while as it seems to be going into the hundreds again.

Bloom: Very low, moderate around the lake.


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October/13/2023 Pinyon Mtn Valley

 We headed for the Whale Peak Trailhead, past the easy sandy road, some rocks, but not more than usual.
The "road" is more of a gully than before, the middle part is the trickiest, close to our ground clearance.

The bloom must have been very good after the summer rain, what we see now are the last flowering plants.
We noticed a lot of Menodora scabra glabrescens | Broom Twinberry in full fruit.
It didn't look good enough for Euphorbia revoluta | Rolled Leaf Spurge, but we still found several plants in fruit.

The goal today was to check the Sporobolus flexuosus points from Tom Chester.
The rain may have come too early, we found a lot of dried grasses, some maybe, some probably not, some definitely not.
We probably found Sporobolus flexuosus in two places, one good enough to take a voucher.

The best grass we found, large and in some numbers, is Muhlenbergia porteri | Porter's muhly.

Sporobolus contractus | Spike Dropseed was high on our "to find" list and we found several large plants, mostly in fruit.

The rain seemed to be OK for Mirabilis multiflora pubescens | Giant four o'clock as we saw many large flowering plants.

Our second stop was the PCT from the S2 towards Banner.
It looks bad, much drier, too dry to expect any Sporobolus, this turned out to be true, not a good year there.

The temperature was in the low sixties when we left and 85 when we returned from the PCT (s2) detour.

Bloom: Low.


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October/11/2023 Smuggler Canyon - Bisnaga Alta Wash

 Windy in town, a wall of sand at the end of Coyote Canyon / Pegleg and a plume of sand close to the Carrizo Marsh.
We were safe though, the wind was actually pleasant and sometimes completely gone.

It's been 8 years since we hiked this particular route, time to check it out again.

The bloom is certainly winding down, some of the Fouquieria splendens splendens, Ocotillo are in bloom.
Here you can find the pretty Euphorbia, Euphorbia pediculifera pediculifera | Carrizo mountain spurge.
Still a few fields of fragrant Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed.

Surprisingly we found a Proboscidea althaeifolia | Devil's claw; desert unicorn plant in good bloom and several blooming Ferocactus cylindraceus | California barrel cactus.

The temperature was in the mid sixties when we left and 85 when we returned.

Bloom: Low to Moderate.


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October/10/2023 Pinyon Wash - Split Rock

 A lot of soft sand came down Pinyon Wash this summer. The road is a bit tricky because of the sand.
The wash itself is barren. This is probably due to the new sand deposits and the many footprints in the soft sand.

There is virtually no germination of spring annuals. There is an abundance of monsoon annuals such as Pectis papposa papposa | Chinchweed, still quite fresh.
Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye and Senna armata | Spiny senna are probably just past their prime.

Blooming Chilopsis linearis arcuata, desert willow and lots of good blooming Eriogonum plumatella.
Many perennials responded to the monsoon rains, such as Acamptopappus sphaerocephalus sphaerocephalus | Desert goldenhead, Porophyllum gracile | Odora, and Menodora scabra glabrescens | Broom twinberry.

The goal was to relocate Sporobolus plants found by Tom Chester. We didn't find any around the GPS points, but we did find our own plant further up the wash.

The temperature was in the low eighties with a slight breeze.

Bloom: Moderate, some plants in peak bloom.


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October/09/2023 Chico Ravine - Laguna - Agua Dulce Loop

 Many look alikes in good bloom Penstemon centranthifolius | Scarlet Bugler, Penstemon rostriflorus | Bridges' Penstemon, Keckiella ternata ternata | Whorled Leaf Penstemon and Epilobium canum latifolium | California Fuchsia.
Another plant that covers larger areas Castilleja miniata miniata , Giant red paintbrush in good bloom.

A late blooming Laguna plant, Dieteria asteroides lagunensis | Mount Laguna aster is in good bloom, most likely more on the other side of S1.
The last blooming Horkelia clevelandii clevelandii | Cleveland's horkelia and Leptosiphon floribundus floribundus | Hairy summersnow.

Solidago velutina californica | California goldenrod sometimes covering larger areas and in good bloom.

Still plenty of water in the various streams, often with the best flowering.

We've added several (2/3) new plants to our list, which doesn't happen as often as it used to.

Bloom at the beginning and around Lake Laguna is low, otherwise in the canyons bloom is moderate to good for the time of year.

Bloom: Sometimes low, locally good for this time of year.


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October/07/2023 San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area & Sentenac

 We started walking along the northern fence and the bloom is much less than on our previous visit to the southern part.
Best find of the day: A flowering Cucurbita foetidissima | Stinking Gourd and we added a new Cuscuta | Dodder to our list of vouchers for the area.

In Sentenac we searched for an Artiplex that we've never seen before, the ID may be wrong or the plant may be hidden in the dense vegetation.
Best to find it here: Male flowering Baccharis salicina | Willow baccharis, we found a female flowering plant a few days ago in the same area.

Temperatures: Seventies when we arrived in San Felipe and 90 when we returned after 2 hours and 95 when we left.
Bloom: Low.


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October/06/2023 Willow Spring Loop

 Driving up Montezuma Grade, an excellent display of yellow: Bahiopsis parishii | Parish's goldeneye, Pectis papposa papposa | Chinch weed and higher up Encelia actoni | Acton brittlebush.
An unusually large display of large flowering Datura wrightii | Jimson weed on our drive up and along the route.
Oenothera californica avita | California evening primrose and lots of Mirabilis multiflora pubescens | Giant four o'clocks on our drive down.

On our way down Old Wilson Road and at the start of the hike, huge Eriastrum sapphirinum sapphirinum | Sapphire Woolly Star in full bloom, a rather rare sight.
In the same area there are many large flowering Lessingia glandulifera glandulifera.

As expected all along our route, Amaranthus fimbriatus.

Lots of Mirabilis multiflora pubescens | Giant four o'clock in full spectacular bloom and completely closed 3 hours later.

Temperatures 70 -> 82 still a bit warm for an off trail hike up several hills.

A detour to a 20 acres fire at the end of July 2023. Plants are already growing back and the Mirabilis plants are back to full size.
Except for the many young Encelia actoni | Acton brittlebush there is not much going on at the burn site.

Bloom: Good for this time of year.


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October/05/2023 Blue Ribbon - Sweetwater Loop

 One of the few areas in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park we hadn't visited before.
Going down the Blue Ribbon Trail, the flowers didn't look very good.
But as we got closer to a creek, the bloom picked up considerably and became more interesting.

Highlights: Monardella breweri lanceolata | Mustang Mint, a white Eriastrum sapphirinum sapphirinum | Sapphire Woolly Star.
Hardly any annoying insects to bother us.

Temperature a pleasant 70-80 degrees.

Bloom: Low, moderate along the water.


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October/03/2023 Noble Canyon Loop

 The most visible plants: Gutierrezia sarothrae | matchweed, Eriogonum fasciculatum polifolium , California buckwheat | (in fruit) Cercocarpus betuloides betuloides | birch-leaf mountain mahogany.

Walking down the road, the bloom is quite good, with large Acmispon heermannii heermannii | Heermann's lotus lining the road.
Many Keckiella ternata ternata | Whorled Leaf Penstemon along the way are still in bloom.

Our best find of the day, several in bloom: Erythranthe cardinalis, Scarlet monkeyflower.

In Noble Canyon itself there is much less bloom, except near the creek. The number of insects that followed us all the way up Noble Canyon was annoying.

Bloom: Moderate, lower in Noble Canyon.


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October/02/2023 San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area

 Just outside of Sentenac Canyon and in the San Felipe Valley, the Prosopis glandulosa torreyana | Honey mesquite looks spectacular in fruit.
We have never seen such a display of fruit, this time last year the plants looked dead.

This time we were looking for Atriplex that are not frequently recorded, most likely because these are annuals that grow when it's warm.
We found Atriplex argentea expansa | Silverscale and Atriplex serenana serenana | Saltscale only in this area and now it's time to find them in bloom and we did.
Another target Atriplex canescens canescens | Four-winged saltbush, tiny almost invisible female flowers and large fruits.

The most visible flowers: Isocoma acradenia eremophila | Toothed leaved alkali goldenbush, Gutierrezia sarothrae | Matchweed and Datura wrightii | Jimson weed.

The interesting plants are scattered and sometimes hidden by invasive plants and large areas of dry non-native grasses.
The goal is to record plant locations and voucher all plants.

Warning: Access to the Wildlife area is NOT free.

Our next stop is the Sentenac "swamp", here the non-native plants are also present in abundance like vast fields of Bassia hyssopifolia | Fivehook bassia.
There is a removal effort underway, but we don't expect that to work, with the huge seed supply, with fruiting plants now that there is no one around to remove them.
Next San Felipe Valley Wildlife Area is a huge cache of non-native plants.

Bloom: Spotty, some good patches, but generally low.


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October/01/2023 The Potrero west loop

 We've never been on this loop in October after a monsoon rain.
As in most of the low desert, Pectis papposa papposa | chinch weed is everywhere in color and scent.

We expected to find a fringe population of Proboscidea althaeifolia | Devil's claw.
It looks more like a main population, we zigzagged around the plants, caught about 400, missed more than 50% on our route, there must be thousands of plants out here.

We wanted to find out if Abutilon palmeri | Indian Mallow, can flower by the end of the year.
They do in abundance, 100% of the plants in good bloom, this could even be a prime bloom after a monsoon rain.
Some of the Horsfordia alata | Pink Velvet Mallow are in bloom.

If Abutilon is blooming out here after the monsoon rains, what about Abutilon abutiloides | Shrubby Indian mallow in Blair Valley?
We have been trying to find them in bloom for over 5 years, with over 20 failed trips, but today some of the plants are in good bloom.

Bloom: Good, not a lot of variation.


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September/29/2023 Middle Peak Loop

 A hike in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park, temperatures in the seventies, but it feels much warmer because the sun is still pretty strong.
The most abundant bloomers: Gutierrezia sarothrae | Matchweed Epilobium canum latifolium | California fuchsia and Corethrogyne filaginifolia | California aster.

Bloom is good at the start and drops off halfway up Middle Peak, a bit the opposite of what we expected.
Much better closer to the summit.
We took a slightly different route along the Sugar Pine Trail.
We were very pleased to see small trees, so we could finally see fresh leaves.

The goal was to find Pycnanthemum californicum | Sierra Mint and we did, some of the hundreds of plants were a bit in bloom.
In the same area an unusually high number of strange Verbascum thapsus | Great Mullein, Fasciation seems to be very common with these plants.

We also hoped to find some Asclepias fascicularis, Narrow-leaf milkweed in bloom, and we did find some nice looking plants along our route.

Bloom: Mixed, ranging from not bad to almost non-existent.


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Reports from previous seasons

Season: 2022-2023 Season: 2021-2022 Season: 2020-2021 Season: 2019-2020 Season: 2018-2019 Season: 2017-2018 Season: 2016-2017


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