May 23, 2025
Welcome to the Theodore Payne Foundation’s 42nd year of the Wildflower Hotline. The Hotline offers weekly on-line and recorded updates on the best locations for viewing spring wildflowers in Southern and Central California. 
In Southern California, the valleys and foothills are fading, leaving behind fruit and seed for next year’s germination. Above 4000 feet in elevation however, many spring wildflowers are just coming into glorious bloom. 

Back in March when we first reported on the wildflower awakening on Figueroa Mountain in the Los Padres Nation Forest, there wasn’t hope for a super display this year. A wildfire had scourged the area in July of 2024. Certainly, some post fire annuals would show up, but with so much devastation and little winter rainfall, it was thought that wildflowers would be sparse and short-lived. A different story emerged, however. A field reporter returned to Figueroa Mountain five times over the spring to photo document an amazing wildflower succession over two months. You have read these chronicles in TPF’s Wildflower Hotline reports this spring. The 5th trip last week found, once again, the wildflower display was good with a variety of new species replacing the earlier spring blooms. Most of the California poppy and purple lupine displays have faded, as have the chia, blue dicks, globe gilia and fiesta flowers. Instead, the displays included several late-season flowers. The lovely ruby chalice clarkia, showy elegant clarkia, California hedge nettle, California cudweed, Catalina Mariposa lily, butter lupine, pacific pea, purple pagodas, fringed onion, miner’s lettuce, common phacelia, and scorpion weed were widespread. The presence of so many clarkias, a.k.a “farewell-to-spring,” makes one wonder how long Figueroa Mountain will continue to debut new wildflower species. It was indeed a successful wildflower season on Figueroa Mountain in 2025.
Driving along Hwy 74 in the San Jacinto Mountains, you will come upon Morris Ranch Road in Garner Valley. The road is lined with flowers in its uphill section, including a nice stand of grape soda lupine at the beginning of the south fork of the San Jacinto  River. The Bajada lupine is in full bloom along the immediate roadside as well. The sunny yellow interior goldenbush is starting to brighten up the region while the smaller chia sage is filling in spaces between them making for a nice purple and yellow color combination. There are pleasing blooms on the lower part of the Cedar Spring Trail, including Davidson’s phacelia, prickly phlox, common forget-me-nots, baby blue eyes, and hairy lotus. Cupped leaf ceanothus, Eastwood manzanita, and pink bracket manzanita are in lovely bloom there too. On the sun exposed upper part of the trail, wild canterbury bells are a delight to behold dotting the landscape with their purple-blue color. Near the top of the trail, pretty pink Johnston’s rockcress was scattered about. This area is just starting to bloom well and should be good to visit during the next month or so if it doesn’t get too hot.
With warmer days, the spring bloom is really ramping up at the Oak Glen Preserve! Perfect weather and temperatures in the mid- to upper 70s can be enjoyed while the valleys below are hitting the mid- to upper 90s! The Southern California Montane Botanic Garden on the Oak Glen Preserve is situated at an elevation of 4,800 feet in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains, so spring arrives later here than elsewhere in the SoCal valleys. The Botanic Garden features more than 150 native wildflowers of the Southern California mountains, with several venues, such as Ruth's Butterfly Garden and Hummingbird Hill, with species selected for their attraction to butterflies and moths and hummingbirds, respectively. But the real attraction for wildflower enthusiasts is the Artist's Palette--a six-acre hillside that used to be covered with weeds is now covered with native wildflowers. A prominent feature is "Sendero del Sol"--the Trail of the Sun--highlighting a "sun" with long white-yellow rays composed of fringed linanthus, golden fiddleneck, yellow tidy-tips, sun cups, and popcorn flowers surrounded by a "sky" of blue and purple flowers comprised of desert bells, tansy-leaved phacelia, Arroyo lupine, baby blue eyes, and purple owl's-clover. The Hummingbird Hill venue is also looking good in early bloom with Eaton's firecracker, scarlet bugler, and fuchsia-flowered gooseberry in good show.
That’s it for this week. Visit the Wildflower Hotline website to see photos of these and more wildflower sites. The next and LAST report will be available on Friday, May 30th.