March 27, 2026
Welcome to the Theodore Payne Foundation’s Wild Flower Hotline. I’m Tom Henschel. The Hotline offers weekly on-line and recorded updates on the best locations for viewing spring wildflowers in Southern and Central California. All locations are on easily accessible public lands and range from urban to wild, distant to right here in L.A 
Wildflowers blooming on Figueroa Mountain, northeast of Los Olivos in the Los Padres National Forest include good displays of Chinese houses, hummingbird sage, California hedge nettle, and blue fiesta flower. Goldfields and red-orange paintbrush add brighter color to the otherwise pastel wash of flowers. Under the shady canopy of oaks, miner’s lettuce, sky lupine, blue dicks, and California golden violets are flourishing in the moist soils. Continuing up Figueroa Mountain Road, pink clarkias, goldfields, golden yarrow, wild onion orange wallflowers and Catalina mariposa lily are in bloom and on shady, rocky hillsides, look for pink clusters of blossoms of the Pacific pea.  At Vista Point, pull over to view a stunning display of gold and blue-purple color provided by goldfields and blue-eyed grass.  Across from Vista Point along the road to the fire station, a colorful pallet of rich blues from globe gilia, chia, purple sage, and oranges from California poppy and fiddleneck is punctuated by creamy white buckwheat, popcorn flower and caterpillar phacelia. Approaching Tunnel Ranch Road, check out the large patches of golden yarrow along the roadside, and the area of the Davy Brown campground look for and smell the lovely fragrance of bush lupine. Golden yarrow, phacelia, clarkia, chia stinging lupine, yellow whispering bells and Fremont phacelia decorate spaces among boulders and rocks on the roadside slopes. At Ranger Peak, paintbrush begins to dot the slopes with their red-orange color. Notice also, the patches of baby blue eyes competing for the best sunny locale. From this point, passing through Cachuma Peak, Sunset Valley, Happy Canyon and Chicken Springs, there will be frequent sightings of larger perennial species like bush poppy, morning glory, buckwheat, wild cucumber, monkeyflower, prickly phlox, deerweed, and elderberry.


At the California Botanic Garden in Claremont, buds and blooms are in various stages of development throughout the 86-acre garden. The voluminous shades of blue provided by a diversity of ceanothus are fading as April nears, as are the bright pink blossoms of California redbud. Warm yellows, golds, oranges, and reds of California brittlebush, California sun cup, chick lupine, cobweb thistle, desert marigold, sticky monkeyflower, desert globemallow, island bush poppy, and California poppies are painting the landscape now. Blooms that occur together in large assemblages including lavender-blue Douglas iris, white cryptantha, and California blue-eyed grass, make stunning displays as well. The multiple shades of pink and coral blossoms are decorating the elegant clarkias now in flower throughout the garden as well.

At the Santa Rosa Plateau Ecological Reserve in the Santa Ana Mountains, the vernal pools still have some water, and the trail to them is lined with California poppies. In the coming weeks, the drying edges of the pools will soon display a colorful display of rare vernal pool flora. Until then, look into the pools’ shallow waters and try to spot tiny, rare fairy shrimp. Trekking along the trails of the Plateau watch for the subtle pink hues of splendid Mariposa lily, Southern checkerbloom and coast morning glory interrupted by intense blues of miniature lupine, blue eyed grass, and a group of lovely purple-blue brodiaeas [bro-dee-ah] on the east end of the pools. Past the pools and along the trail to the Adobes, visitors enjoy views of the various oaks, and meadows where golden California buttercup, and blue dicks, stand out among the grassy slopes. Red bush monkeyflower provides a pop of red amongst the oaks, black sage, and chamise. Also spotted was a spattering of white fairy lanterns, and purple owl’s clover. 
That’s it for this week’s report. Visit theodore payne dot org to see photos of these and more wildflower sites discussed this week. The Theodore Payne Foundation’s annual Native Plant Garden Tour is April 11 & 12. For more information, please visit native plant garden tour dot org. The next report will be available on Friday, April 3rd.