NATURE'S NEW DUDS : SCORCHED PARKLAND OFFERS UP BOUQUETS.

Byline: Patricia Farrell Aidem Daily News Staff Writer

Spring showers and an autumn wildfire have combined to create a spectacular landscape of wildflowers in the Santa Clarita Woodlands.

Soft pastels and brilliant yellows and reds flourish along a charred background in Wiley Canyon, where a welder's torch sparked a seven-acre fire in December, the day the parkland was made public.

``The flowers are looking really good if you know where to go,'' said naturalist Don Mullally, a volunteer who leads tours at the park. ``We're seeing a lot of blooms in the fire area - blues, purple, red, stands of poppies.

Hikers can venture along the Wiley Canyon trail or the newly blazed Chocolate Lily Trail, named for the rare purplish brown blossom unexpectedly found in abundance during the work.

``We knew they were up the trail at the top of the hill so we asked them to dig around it so they wouldn't destroy any of the flowers and lo and behold they found more of them,'' Mullally said. ``We really worship those flowers.''

Also along the trails are foothill lupines, purple and white spikes that grow as high as 2-1/2 feet, red maids, orange fiddlenecks, pale blue meadow memophilia and white forget-me-nots, purple nightshade and brilliant yellow bush poppies.

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3 Photos

Photo: (1--color) Don Mullally walks on a hillside cover ed with blooming flowers in Santa Clarita Woodlands.

(2-3--color) Foothill lupines sprout in the landscape charred in a wildfire in December.

Shaun Dyer/Special to the Daily News