FLOWERS GONE WILD HOTLINE OFFERS INFORMATION ON BLOOMS.Byline: Bill Becher Special to the Daily News Southern California's wildflowers are busting out all over, and a free hotline will tell you the best places to see them. Through the end of May, call (818) 768-3533 to hear the blooming beta narrated by Emmy Award winning actor Joe Spano. Messages are updated Thursday evenings with information for more than 90 wildflower sites throughout Southern California. Visitors to www.theodorepayne.org can read the weekly reports covering all of California. The site provides links to dozens of flower-watching destinations and lists the common and botanical names of each flower mentioned, and where and when it is blooming. This year marks the 22nd anniversary of the Wildflower Hotline, a free public service of the Theodore Payne Foundation  This article or section is written like an .Please help [ rewrite this article] from a neutral point of view. Mark blatant advertising for , using . . With its wide range of habitats, from coastal sage scrub Coastal sage scrub (or simply coastal scrub) is a low scrubland plant community found in the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion of coastal California and northern Baja California. to deserts to alpine meadows, California enjoys one of the most diverse and spectacular arrays of wildflowers from the state flower, the showy orange California poppy, to the blues of the wild lilac, Santa Barbara ceanothus ce·a·no·thus n. Any of various shrubs or small trees of the genus Ceanothus, native mostly to western North America and having showy clusters of usually blue or whitish flowers. Also called redroot. . Popular area destinations covered by the hotline include the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve is a California wildlife reserve located in the rural westside of the Antelope Valley in northern Los Angeles County. Constitutionally, it is a state park. Its namesake is the state flower, the California Poppy. , Joshua Tree National Park Joshua Tree National Park, 1,022,703 acres (414,050 hectares), S California. Lying between the high Mojave Desert and the low Colorado Desert, this park has a unique ecosystem in which are preserved rare Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia , Carrizo Plain National Monument Carrizo Plain National Monument: see National Parks and Monuments (table). , Anza Borrego Desert State Park and local mountain ranges, including the Santa Monica Mountains The Santa Monica Mountains are a low transverse range in southern California in the United States. Geography They run for approximately 40 mi (64 km) east-west from the Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles to Point Mugu in Ventura County. and the San Gabriel Mountains San Gabriel Mountains, S Calif., E and NE of Los Angeles, running c.50 mi (80 km) westward from Cajon Pass. San Antonio Peak (10,080 ft/3,072 m) is the highest of the range. Citrus fruits are raised on the southern foothills. . Foundation staff and volunteers gather up-to-date bloom information from park rangers, botanists, conservation specialists and members of the California Native Plant Society The California Native Plant Society (CNPS) is a California not-for-profit organization that seeks to increase understanding of California's native flora and to preserve that flora. The CNPS was formed in 1965 in the East Bay. . Wildflower Hotline coordinator Sid Dutcher forecasts a later-than-usual flower season in 2004. ``We won't have the spectacular carpets of flowers we would have after an El Nino year, but nonetheless the wildflower season should be good,'' said Dutcher. ``The last couple of storms have helped out a lot.'' But he said that, in many areas, needed rainfall was spotty. ``In the Mojave Desert, for example, some areas received ample rain and snow, while an area only a mile away might have received no precipitation at all.'' The Theodore Payne Foundation for California Wildflowers and Native Plants is a nonprofit organization devoted to the preservation of California's native plants. Theodore Payne opened his first nursery in downtown Los Angeles Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, located close to the geographic center of the metropolitan area. The sprawling, multi-centered megacity is such that its downtown core is often considered just another district like Hollywood or in 1903 and was involved in landscaping projects that emphasized the use of native plants, including Cal Tech and Descanso Gardens. The Payne Foundation provides a variety of educational programs, including garden design classes and talks on plant propagation and natural history. The foundation also operates a retail nursery offering hundreds of California native perennials, shrubs, trees and wildflower seeds for use in home gardens. The native plant nursery, bookshop and seed store is open to the public Tuesday through Saturday. Its 22-acre canyon setting in Sun Valley also includes Flower Hill (a trail winding through chaparral above the nursery), demonstration gardens, a picnic area and extensive areas of natural wildlife habitat. For more information, contact the Foundation at (818) 768-1802 or visit online at www.theodorepayne.org. CAPTION(S): 3 photos Photo: (1 -- 2 -- color) no caption (Poppies) (3 -- color) Heather Mason, 4, of Lancaster explores a field at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Bill Becher/Special to the Daily News |
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