BROWN HILLS, DIM SEASON POPPY RESERVE CENTER TO SHUT DOWN EARLY.

Byline: Charles F. Bostwick Staff Writer

LANCASTER - With the wildflower season possibly the poorest in decades - maybe even in a century - the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve visitor center is shutting down after April 21.

Only a handful of perennial poppy plants have bloomed at the 1,745-acre reserve, and the surrounding hills and fields that some years are covered in orange this year are basically brown.

``I remember one year there was only one week of flowers blooming. But there were flowers blooming. This year you have to hunt long and wide to find any flowers,'' said local historian and author Milt Stark, 80, who has lived in the Antelope Valley since 1923. ``I've never seen it quite this bad.''

The state parks department, which runs the poppy reserve, is keeping the visitor center open through Lancaster's annual California Poppy Festival April 20 and 21. The visitor center usually closes in mid-May.

Though the reserve is brown, docents are still leading walks at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays until April 21. The visitor center is open 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. weekdays and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekends.

In good wildflower years like 1995, the reserve 15 miles west of Lancaster can get 100,000 visitors, last month it had 1,880, parks officials said.

Stark, who authored ``A Flower-Watcher's Guide'' after nearly 30 years of photographing Antelope Valley wildflowers, thinks this might be the poorest wildflower year since a five-year drought in the 1890s.

While local records don't go back that far, the National Weather Service says this year was the driest in Los Angeles since records-keeping started in 1877: 4.27 inches downtown, less than one-third of average. The previous driest year was 1960-61, with 4.85 inches.

In the Antelope Valley, rainfall measured 3.08 inches at the poppy reserve, slightly more than the 2.98 inches in 1995-96 according to state park records, and 2.2 inches in Palmdale - also less than one-third of normal.

The rain that did fall this year didn't produce much effect, Stark said.

``We'd get a little bit of rain and then a little bit later and it dries off in a day. It does absolutely no good,'' Stark said. Last year gave the area 9.08 inches of rain that produced fields of poppies, state park officials said.

Unusually, this spring even Joshua trees aren't bearing flowers, except for trees in city landscaping that get irrigated.

``I've seen one Joshua blooming in the wild, and I've really looked,'' Stark said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color -- ran in AV edition only) Stephanie Hazen, left, and Carolyn Disch of San Francisco find the land barren around the California Poppy Reserve.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer

(2 -- ran in AV edition only) Just a few poppies bloom amid the rain- starved brush around the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve Visitor Center.

Jeff Goldwater/Staff Photographer