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More Photos, Field Guides, and Early Bloomers (Again)

© Gregg Pasterick

NARRATOR: Last time, on Wildflowers of North America, our correspondent and his wife, innkeepers escaping the oppression of winter, not to mention not having a day off since Florida couldn't make up its mind about who should be President of this great land resplendent in its Coat of Many Wildflowers, made for Point Reyes (again). Their escape took them deeper and deeper into the warm embrace of spring, where they encountered American Winter Cress, Grand Hound's-tongue, French Broom, Wild Iris and more.

What could he possibly add to last week's travelogue? Plenty. He's very verbose.

PAN to our CORRESONDENT, hunched over a keyboard, the glow of his monitor flickering in his bloodshot eyes, a stack of dog-eared field guides at one elbow, photos scattered around the other:

Our escape to Point Reyes was more than putting distance between us and that mountaintop B and B. It was also a chance to see a colony of breeding Elephant Seals, do some bird watching, and get acquainted with new wildflowers. We were not disappointed, on all counts.

For many miles, we frequently pulled over to investigate a variety of blossoms. Impatient motorists with no appreciation of nature were not pleased, letting us know through a variety of familiar and not-so-familiar gestures. Road rage seemed a definite possibility. Finally, at Chimney Rock, where the Elephant Seals lounged on the beach, we were able to park and hike. It was like approaching the Emerald City through that field of poppies; all sorts of new wildflowers awaited discovery.

While yellow seemed the color of the day up to this point, such was not the case as we approached the Elephant Seals. The dirt path we followed cut across a great sloping grassy cliff. Tule Elk browsed the grassy slopes above us, in the distance, and the Pacific Ocean through itself at the rocks below. And all around us, secreted away like painted Easter eggs in the backyard, a variety of colors dared us to notice them.

Pale violet Western Dog Violets (see "A Tale of Two or Three Violets") were scattered around us haphazardly, but we lost interest in those quickly as we noticed first one, then two, then an abundance of rosy pink flowers. And then there were others; smaller rosier flowers, covering the ground like little pink stars. And a lily. A new and strange lily. And a new variety of lupine. Lupine, the wildflowers that lured me out of the mountains of North Carolina into the mountains of California, and here was yet another species. What were all these new botanical gems?

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