WILDFLOWERS ARE PUTTING ON AN EARLY SHOW BEAUTIFUL BLOSSOMS A RESULT OF WET SEASON, SUNSHINE.

Byline: Eric Leach Staff Writer

THOUSAND OAKS - Wildflowers are carpeting local hillsides with brilliant patches of purple, yellow and blue - blooming earlier than at anytime in recent memory thanks to a series of heavy rainstorms and the hot, dry weather that followed.

Botanists say if the right combination of rain and sun continues through spring, it could foster one of the best wildflower seasons in 50 years.

``When we had these sunny days, everything started growing like crazy. Everything is kind of exploding,'' said Glen Kinney, supervising park ranger for the Conejo Open Space Conservation Agency, which oversees Wildwood Park in Thousand Oaks.

Kinney said Wildwood Park - whose rolling hills have provided a picturesque backdrop for films like ``Wuthering Heights'' and TV series like ``Gunsmoke'' and ``Bonanza'' - has had five times the normal amount of rain so far this season.

``It's kind of weird to see so many flowers in winter, but they're beautiful,'' said Son Li of Los Angeles, who stopped to take a walk in Wildwood Park last week while he was house hunting in the Thousand Oaks area. Sam Miller of Moorpark also got a surprise when he took his son Jake and Jake's wife Kathy for a walk along the Stagecoach Bluff in Wildwood Park.

``There's plenty of wildflowers here. They just started popping out,'' Miller said. ``This mesa is amazing. You can almost envision a stagecoach.''

At the 1,750-acre Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve officials said it looks like a very good year for wildflowers, although much will depend on whether the right conditions hold up.

The poppies are already coming up and officials predicted a bloom by late February.

``It should be a phenomenal year for flowers across the Mojave,'' Mojave Desert state parks superintendent Craig Matson said. ``This could be one of those historic years when everything on the west side of the valley turns orange.''

In a one meter-square plot that was examined at the poppy reserve recently, more than 200 individual poppy plants are growing, compared to 125 plants after the 2003 season, which was considered the best in five years.

The Antelope Valley Poppy Reserve's visitor center normally doesn't open until March, but officials are considering moving the opening date up to mid or late February.

``I've never seen a year like this with poppies blooming in January. It's really something,'' said Lancaster wildflower book author Milt Stark, 83, who has been watching desert wildflowers for decades.

But Judy Elgin, senior park aide at the Mojave Desert State Parks Office in Lancaster, which oversees the Poppy Reserve, said it's hard to predict now what the desert flowers will be like in another month.

``Last year it looked like we had good wildflowers, but it got hot and everything dried up. Two weeks from now who knows. We might get some 90 degree weather and that will be the end of it. For now it looks good.''

At Death Valley National Monument Park Ranger Charlie Callagan said the wet winter could yield the best desert wildflower display in 50 years.

Already, flowers are blooming at the southern end of the 3.4 million acre park - the largest national park outside Alaska.

The bloom is expected to gain momentum in mid-February and peak in March before temperatures climb into triple digits. Death Valley is one of the hottest places on Earth during the summer.

``Right now, it's unbelievably lush,'' Death Valley National Park spokesman Terry Baldino said, ``and with the mountaintops blanketed with snow, it's really beautiful.''

Since July, almost 4 1/2 inches of rain have been recorded at the park weather station at Furnace Creek - about four times the amount usually received by late January. The park 180 miles west of Las Vegas has also seen the wettest two weeks in 93 years of record keeping.

In the Los Angeles Ventura-county region some areas have received three to five times the normal amount of rain.

Flowers are carpeting the ground on some hillsides in Los Angeles and Ventura counties and bright yellow giant coreopsis are blooming on the coast.

``It seems that the rain and the burst of warm temperature we had in the last week was just the right combination to make the wildflowers go crazy,'' said Julie Christian, botanist with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation area.

``I went out this week at Rancho Sierra Vista, and even near the overflow parking lot there there are hundreds of thousands of shooting stars. Goldfields are there, tiny little daisies that carpet the ground. A great place to see them now is at Paramount Ranch just as you turn into the entrance,'' Christian said.

Some of the most beautiful flowers blooming now are the giant coreopsis on Point Dume south of Zuma Beach.

These unusual bright yellow flowers with bright green, lacy leaves can even be seen next to the southbound lanes of the Ventura Freeway in the Conejo Grade.

``We hike at Point Dume frequently. I's a wonderful spot to do whale watching,'' said Jerry Daily of Canoga Park. ``The whales come in really in close, and the flowers out there are beautiful at this time of year. We just love the yellow ones, the giant coreopsis. We've been going up there four or five years in a row. The colors this year, they seem to be more intense and more beautiful.''

Tarja Sagar, an environmental geographer and vegetation technician with the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, said she sees early wildflowers everywhere these days.

``Once you start looking around the ridge lines and rock outcroping, you will be surprised to see all the little flowers.

``It's about a month early for a lot of the species,'' she said.

She said there is an abundance of wildflowers along the Pentachaeta Trail in Westlake Village, just southeast of the intersection of Triunfo Canyon and Lindero Canyon roads.

There are wildflowers blooming at all of the state parks in the Santa Monica Mountains, including Topanga, Malibu Creek and Point Mugu State Parks.

Tom Maxwell, who leads wildflower hikes for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy and the Sierra Club in the Ventura County area, said it was an unusually good year.

``I saw twice as many flowers as I've ever seen in December before and most of them are still there. They are not only early but abundant, especially the ones that are triggered by rain.''

Daily News staff writer Chuck Bostwick and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

Eric Leach, [phone]

eric.leach(at)dailynews.com

IF YOU GO

Tom Maxwell plans to lead a wildflower walk for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy in the Sage Ranch area between the Simi and San Fernando valleys starting at 2:30 p.m. today. The Sage Ranch parking lot is near the intersection of Woolsey Canyon and Black Canyon roads and can be reached from the San Fernando Valley via Woolsey Canyon, and Simi Valley via Black Canyon. For information on Maxwell's wildflower hikes, call [phone].

CAPTION(S):

4 photos, 2 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- ran in Simi edition only) Above, wildflowers already are carpeting parts of Wildwood Park. Above left, a squirrel munches on a daisy salad thanks to a combination of rain and warm weather. Other areas of Southern California also are expecting a fantastic flower season.

(3 -- ran in Simi edition only) Gail Luna, 28, of Malibu runs on a Point Dume trail featuring bouquets of wildflowers.

(4 -- color -- ran in Valley edition only) Many wildflowers are in bloom already at Pint Dume, dotting the coastal area's hillsides early with bright splashes of color.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer

Box:

(1 -- ran in Valley edition only) IF YOU GO (see text)

(2 -- ran in Valley edition only) WILDFLOWERS

SOURCE: The Santa Monica Mountains Recreation Area

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