There are four distinct periods to the Rancho Hondo Flowers (by Paul Zweng):
1 (earliest: mid Feb to late March/early April): characterized by the blooming of shooting stars, dentaria californica (milk maids), and cynoglossum grande (hound tongue). Probably starts in mid Feb and ends in late March. Obviously in early April there will still be some shooting stars and hounds tongue blooming that are located in shady spots.
What we saw on 9-10 April, 2005, was that nearly all of the "open exposure" shooting stars were in seed. In shade, there will just a few still blooming. The hounds tongue was well past peak bloom and had seed pods already formed. The milk maid had already come and gone.
2 (early-middle period: late March to late April/early May): characterized by blooming dichlostemma capitatum (blue dicks), fritillary lanceolata, delphinium patens, lithophragma affinis (woodland star-full sun exposures), common fiddleneck, violata pendunculata (Johnny jump ups), Wyethia glabra (green mule's ear), clematis lasiantha, gilia tricolor (bird's eye or
tricolor gilia), lupinus bicolor (dove lupine), plagiobothrys nothofulvus (popcorn flower), dentaria californica (buttercups), orthocarpus erianthus (butter & eggs), baeria chrysostoma (goldfields), montia perfoliata (miner's lettuce), and zigadenus fremontii (Fremont star lily).
3. (middle-late period: throughout May): characterized by blooming sisyrinchium bellum (blue-eyed grass), Calochortus albus (white fairly lantern), ookow, thermopsis macrophylla (false lupine), wind poppy, triteleia laxa (Ithuriel's spear), achillea millefolium (common yarrow), clarkia gracilis (farewell to spring), clarkia purpurea, collinsia heterophylla (Chinese houses), delphinium variegatum (?), scutellaria tuberosa (Danny's skullcap), mimulus guttatus (seep-spring monkey flower),
calandrinia ciliata (red maids--alien)
4. (late period: late May-June): brodiaea elegans (harvet lily), clarkia concinna (red ribbons), aquilegia formosa (red columbine), calochortus luteus (yellow mariposa lily), and my favorite, calochortus venustus (white mariposa lily)
