Here are sic kinds of wildflowers currently blooming in the Feather River Canyon between the Pulga Bridge and Jarbo Gap. I ulled off the road the photograph the Redbud which was the only blooming plant I could spot while driving 55 mph. But walking around the immediate vicinity of the Redbud, I found lots of other species blooming. Here are 5 of them.
The Purple Nightshade, in the Nightshade family, always intrigues me because it is poisonous, yet the family contains many popular vegetables - the potato, eggplant, many kinds of peppers, and tomatoes.
The Indian Paintbrush, a generic term for several dozen species that occur in California, occurs at a wide range of altitudes, so we'll see this species and several others start "moving up the canyon" in the coming months. In the Lakes Basin area, by late June and early July, we'll see yellow and whites species as well as different red ones.
Arnica occurs over a wide range of altitudes also.
The Deer Brush, a species of
Ceanothus, is sometimes called California Lilac, although it's in a different family than the true lilacs.
The Beautiful Blue Dicks is one of several kinds of lilioids formerly in the genus
Brodiaea, and sometimes still called Brodiaea as its "common" name. When a few more current and former members of the Lily family are blooming, I'll photograph them and post an update on their current taxonomic status. Tomorrow I'll post a few more species I photographed on this same trip through the canyon. I'm looking forward to more species blooming closer to home in Quincy. Today I spotted my first wildflower blooming here while watching an FRC softball game. It was Spring Whitlow Grass, a tiny member of the mustard family, which is already prolific in roadside grassy areas.
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