OwensPeak#2A

View of Palomar College looking west from summit of Owens Peak. I have never seen so many California poppies (Eschscholzia californica) on Owens Peak.

Roadside trail at summit of Owens Peak.

A White Mutant Poppy!

Summit of Owens Peak is covered in red maids (Calandrinia ciliata), now placed in the miner's lettuce family (Montiaceae). See Miner's Lettuce On Owens Peak (Beware When Picking For Salad!)

The common European scarlet pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) is sometimes blue! For more information see the following page on Wayne's Word: https://www2.palomar.edu/users/warmstrong/Anagallis1.htm.

Stinging lupine (Lupinus hirsutissimus).

Cladonia chlorophaea, a common soil lichen on shady, moss-covered banks and road cuts throughout the chaparral of coastal San Diego County. Although the flattened thallus resembles a foliose lichen, it is technically a fruticose lichen because of the upright structures called podetia that resemble miniature golf tees. The flowering plant is Jepsonia parryi, a native perennial that grows in shaded slopes among mosses, liverworts and lichens. The generic name commemorates Willis Linn Jepson, famous California botanist who wrote the original Manual of the Flowering Plants of California (1923).

The recent rains of May 2015 brought out this lovely mariposa lily on Owens Peak.

This is an amazing spring for wildflowers on Owens Peak. This is Nuttall's snapdragon (Antirrhinum nuttallianum ssp. nuttallianum) .

This is an amazing spring for wildflowers. I have never seen this unusual "climbing snapdragon" (a remarkable twining vine in the snapdragon family) on Owens Peak.

Scrophularia californica (Bee Plant) on Owens Peak (1 April 2019). The flowers are similar to S. peregrina from Portugal, but the leaves and stature are much different.

A beautiful climbing vine of late spring on north side of Owens Peak.

Canchalagua (Centarium venustum) of the gentian family: This has been an amazing spring for wildflowers on Owens Peak north of Palomar College. Note the unusual spirally twisted anthers.

As the last flowers of spring fade away, the summer fire season begins. Introduced annual grasses are especially tall & dense this year. This wildflower is appropriately named "farewell-to spring."

Navarretia hamata ssp. hamata: A very small, prickly wildflower of early summer with a distinct & unmistakable skunky scent. It is common along dirt roads on the north side of Owens Peak.

Deerweed (Lotus scoparius var. scoparius), a native shrubby perennial found throughout the Palomar College Arboretum and adjacent coastal sage scrub. Much to the chagrin of botanists like myself, this genus has been renamed and the new scientific trinomial is Acmispon glaber var. glaber. In the desert var. brevialatus, the keel is longer than the wings.

Hollyleaf redberry (Rhamnus ilicifola). Small shrub with bright red berries in the chaparral on north side of Owens Peak. Spiny redberry (Rhamnus crocea) also occurs in the coastal sage scrub east of Palomar College.

Mission manzanita (Xylococcus bicolor) is fairly abundant in the chaparral on north side of Owens Peak. Another native shrub in the Ericaceae called summer holly (Comarostaphylis diversifolia) occurs in the Merriam Mountains north of Owens Peak.

Chorizanthe fimbriata var. fimbriata (Fringed Spine-Flower)

Asteraceae: Deinandra (Hemizonia) fasciculata (Tarweed)

The following paragraph is reprinted from Bobbie Stephenson & Tom Oberbauer (CNPS San Diego Chapter Newsletter May 2010). Back in the late 1990s, Bruce Baldwin, now of the Jepson Herbarium and Department of Integrative Biology at UC Berkeley, noticed common leaf characteristics between the California tarweeds and the Hawaiian silverswords. Through his research, he determined that a California tarweed gave rise to the exotic looking silverswords of Hawaii. Possibly just a single seed, transported on a bird's foot or Pacific Ocean currents, apparently reached one of the islands about six million years ago and took root. The "Hawaiian Silversword Alliance" exhibits the most outstanding example of adaptive radiation in the world. The silverswords have evolved drastic differences in growth form, including rosette plants, cushion plants, shrubs and trees. Using genetic analysis, Baldwin has been able to show that silversword's closest relatives are perennial tarweeds of California, namely the species Carlquistia muirii of Monterey County, Anisocarpus scabridus of Shasta County and other northern California Counties, and Kyhosia bolanderi of the high northern and eastern California mountains. Early crosses between some tarweeds and the Hawaiian silverswords were fruitless, but when Baldwin crossed a Hawaiian silversword with each of these three species, hybrids were produced and their close relationship was confirmed.

Images Of The Hawaiian Silver Sword Alliance