The California rain appears to be over, but not its impact. Perhaps not a full blown "superbloom" year, but definitely better than average.
It's hard for me to drive by my local park without stopping to admire the wildflowers. The yellow blooms you see here are all over the hills of CA right now and belong to the black mustard plant.
The yellow blooms look beautiful against blue sky, but it's kind of a love/hate relationship. Black mustard is a highly invasive species. It seems to have snuck into CA with the Spanish colonizers in the 1700s, and it really likes it here!
It grows fast (up to about 6' tall in just 2-3 months) and crowds out native plants. It dries up and turns brown by mid-summer and becomes a huge fire danger, allowing fire to spread rapidly. The LA Times calls it "dangerous" and "fuel for the next fire."
It's nice to see something other than the ubiquitous black mustard. Google tells me this is Gentiana lutea, the great yellow gentian, but I don't think that's accurate. Looks more like bladderpod to me. Those bladder-like structures give it away. I guess Google can't be right all the time! This small stand of lupine is surrounded by a sea of yellow. I wonder if there might be a lot more of it if it were not being crowded out by the black mustard? Oxalis, which most people would consider to be a weed, is low-growing and doesn't pose the fire risk that black mustard does. With it's yellow flowers and shamrock-like leaves, it often decorates the sides of trails and rural roads.
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| Pink ice plant. |
Thanks for stopping by!!
...I love your fields of gold with purple touches. Water makes a HUGE difference. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteit's amazing the way the landscapes changes with rain - beautiful photos
ReplyDeleteSuch a lush green in your landscape photos. Love the nature.
ReplyDeleteSpring has sprung!
ReplyDeleteYour yellow makes me green with envy. It looks gorgeous there. Love the second photo with the curving road and the wonderful sky. And really well done on the bee photo.
ReplyDeleteGlorious colour. Just gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteThe wildflowers are gorgeous.
ReplyDeleteDearest Peter,
ReplyDeleteWish we had such a walking trail with wooden fence (even though it could become a fire hazard😉).
Lovely wild flowers looking at their best and excellent photos.
Hugs,
Mariette
Wow! Gorgeous floral blooms and lovely series of photos ~ very different from your desert ones but equally as beautiful ~ thanks,
ReplyDeleteWishing you good health, laughter and love in your days,
A ShutterBug Explores,
aka (A Creative Harbor)
Rain makes wonders to the Mother Nature. It makes everything bloom.
ReplyDeleteWell you if you see yellow fields here then you are looking at rape seed, at one time it stunk but they must have treated it because its not so bad now. NAy blue flwers like that here now are going to be Bluebells which generally tend to be the spanish veriety whic grow in our garden and I pull up because they are so invasive. An interesting look on nature from your side of the pond.
ReplyDeleteBTW the iphone I use is an Iphone 14 pro, I bought my wife one as well
Ah....Homesick. When I was a kid (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) in the SF Bay Area, the hills were full of mustard every spring.
ReplyDeleteThe spring rain has turned it into a beautiful colorful world again.
ReplyDeleteIt is a pity that every advantage has its disadvantage in view of the fire hazard.
Wonderful!
ReplyDeleteThat's a lot of beautiful scenery.
ReplyDeleteStill that yellow looks great in the landscape.
ReplyDeleteWow, gorgeous flowers and landscape images. Take care, have a great weekend!
ReplyDeleteIt's a gorgeous time of year in the western states. We've had a bountiful spring bloom here too. All that yellow makes me smile.
ReplyDeleteI Don't Know How You Do It Brother But These Photos Are Vividly Gorgeous - Enjoy The Weekend With The Family
ReplyDeleteHappy Friday ,
Cheers
Bengaluru had beauiful pink blooms during sprint. It was in news everywhere. Rains can transform region to tremendous beauty
ReplyDeleteOur Southern Tier of New York wildflowers have gotten started - dandelions, lady's mantle, henbit, and some others, none of which grow six feet tall and pose a fire hazard. We have our share of invasive flowers and plants, too - we humans are our own worst enemies.
ReplyDeleteYour blooms are beautiful, though, and I enjoy your posts, no matter where you are walking.
DeleteI lived in northern CA for most of my life, near hills of mustard. I have photos of me as a child in mustard taller than I was. I love it. I don't see much in southern Oregon, even though the climate is pretty much the same.
ReplyDeleteBeautiful and colorful photos, very nice to see.
ReplyDeleteVery beautiful
ReplyDeleteVery nice to see
Such great floral photos! What could be more beautiful than a hill covered in yellow wildflowers? Such is life that this beauty can turn into a beast under certain conditions.
ReplyDeleteDelightful mustard fields could brighten up any gloomy day!
ReplyDeleteDelightful! Thanks
ReplyDeleteSo lush, colourful and vibrant! The splash of purple looks so pretty in amongst the yellow. Your Black Mustard love/hate relationship reminds me of when I visited Iceland in June of 2017. The lupins were in full bloom and carpeted the land as far as the eye could see. I commented on how beautiful it looked. The guide told me lupins were not native to Iceland and were brought in to help prevent erosion and to enrich the soil. It is now considered an invasive species.
ReplyDeleteLovely yellow color this mustard weed, too bad it is invasive.
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed the wildflowers (which I prefer to call all of them instead of weeds). It's so nice to see the color in the desert, but I do know what you mean about the love/hate relationship with the invasive mustard "flower". .... Practically anything wild grows well in both areas where we mostly hang out -- Florida and Oregon. And dealing with too many invasive species is a constant battle.
ReplyDeleteI agree the yellow is pretty, but also agree the invasive plants are a real problem. They do tend to crowd out the native species that are more attractive to the native wildlife. That bright pink is a fun place to end the post!
ReplyDeleteVery pretty! That reminds me, there is a field of red clover about 10 minutes from here that I want to go see.
ReplyDeleteIn regular times, Napa & Sonoma valleys are full of mustard blooms as early as mid January. I love this time of the year. So joyful with all the yellows.
ReplyDeleteWorth a Thousand Words
It's a great year for chasing wildflowers if you can see them among all the invasive grasses and mustard.
ReplyDeleteEs muy bella la vegetación de la zona y muy buenas tus fotografías.
ReplyDeleteSaludos.
The yellow blooms of the black mustard plant look so lovely! Too bad that it is so invasive and is a fire hazard. Whether it is yellow gentian or bladderpod....it is really pretty! The lupine.....which here in Texas, we refer the blue and white ones as bluebonnet grows and covers pastures and fields . So many artists are constantly capturing it's beauty on canvas. Just love the bee and flower photo!
ReplyDeleteOh, I love wildflowers. De facto I have 4 sachets to plant when Spring finally is really here (way too cold still).
ReplyDeleteNo, Mr. Google does not know everything. Would a bit scary, too, no?
Remember back in the day when we needed to go to the library to get a book for information? My Nieces would never understand!
Beautiful series, to the good half of the year!
One thing I loved when visiting Arizona was seeing the wild flowers - especially the little sunflower and the lupins. I don't recall any black mustard, so hopefully it hasn't spread there yet (however pretty it is when flowering).
ReplyDeleteNice to admire the variety of flowers. Yellow is a spring colour.
ReplyDeleteSo full of joy and hope! And it shows perfectly how important water for your planet is.
ReplyDeleteThis transported me to heaven and a was a balm for my soul. Oxalis plays am important role in increasing the nitrogen content of the soil and are super efficient. I love how similar it looks to the clover family. I have seen bees love them too.
ReplyDeleteAnd it was all yellow. Happy happy images, Peter.
Thanks so much for the pick-me-up!
I'm back after a hiatus with some Early Bird images. :)