BEAUTY IN BLOOM; WILDFLOWERS MAKE A SMALL RIOT OF COLOR.

Byline: David R. Baker Daily News Staff Writer

OK, so it isn't the wet El Nino spring of '98 when flowers blanketed mountains and roadsides with riotous hues.

It's the dry La Nina spring of '99, but lush pockets of wildflowers are bursting from some Southern California slopes and getting high marks from flora mavens.

Yellow bush sunflowers paint Eaton Canyon outside Pasadena, while parts of the Santa Monica Mountains teem with orange monkey flowers, cream-colored everlasting and golden yarrow.

Many of the flowers that wowed hikers last spring are there again. You just have to look for them.

``We have the same variety we had last year - we just don't have the same profusion,'' said Elizabeth Schwartz, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, which promotes native California plants.

Even with normal rainfall, last spring's bloom would have been an impossible act to follow. Rains came and came, and stayed months longer than usual. Arid L.A. turned lush.

``There was so much water that even species that don't always bloom, bloomed,'' Schwartz said.

But with the dry La Nina weather phenomenon holding sway this past winter, the area couldn't even muster a third of last year's rainfall. The season total, 8.09 inches, isn't even half the norm.

As a result, annual flowers, those that sprout from seeds each spring, have fared poorly. Perennials, those plants whose trunks and roots stay put from year to year, have done much better. That means fewer poppies, but plenty of flowering sage.

In the Santa Monica Mountains, a two-mile loop trail at Leo Carrillo State Beach offers bursts of yellow, cream and orange blooms. At Zuma Canyon, in an area where authorities lit controlled fires last fall, mariposa lilies and two-tone everlasting with creamy flowers are filling in space cleared by the burn. Blue lupine dots the area.

Both of those locations rate a solid three on the National Park Service's one-through-five rating system for wildflower blooms, said ranger Ken Low. Not bad, although nothing like last spring.

``Last year, we had a lot of fives,'' Low said.

Although La Nina may be a curse for wildflower lovers, it does carry one potential advantage - you may not sweat as much hunting for blooms on the trail.

Meteorologist Joseph D'Aleo with Weather Services International said long-range forecasts call for cool temperature lingering into the start of summer for Southern California.

``It's a La Nina summer,'' he said. ``The ocean temperatures are a fair amount below normal throughout much of the Pacific, and that will affect you along the coast.''

WHERE TO LOOK

If you're hunting for wildflowers, the Theodore Payne Foundation will do the legwork for you. The Sun Valley-based organization runs a recorded hotline, updated weekly, featuring the best wildflower blooms in southern California. Call [phone].

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2 Photos

PHOTO (1--Color) Tatevik Aslanian decked herself in nature's bounty while on a field trip at Solstice Canyon. The flowers there are in full bloom now.

(2--Color) Visitors to Solstice Canyon are treated to wildflowers in bloom.

David R. Crane/Daily News