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Sunflower Bushes and Moral Dilemmas

© Gregg Pasterick

Southern California in the middle of the winter takes a little getting used to. First there's all the sunshine and blue skies and days that feel like late spring. It presents me with a kind of a moral dilemma. Winters in Ohio, where I grew up, are cold and gray, and when they have a mind to, they drop below zero for days and days. Even snowmen get the shivers. Having a go at a southern California winter seems sinfully pleasurable. On the other hand, I'm no stranger to sinnin', so that's a moral dilemma with shallow roots.

Then there are the birds and butterflies and wildflowers; particularly the wildflowers. Arroyo Lupine, Orange Bush Monkeyflower, California Buttercups, and Desert Four O'clock, splashed about in puddles of blue and purple and orange and golden yellow, are already blooming in mid-February. It seems so unfair, and I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Or maybe it already has, and if it has, Mother Nature has two left feet because these spring-like gifts have culminated in bushes of sunflowers. Not patches of sunflowers. Not sunflowers growing like weeds. Bushes of sunflowers.

These bushes have dominated the landscape in some places, creating a vibrant yellow chaparral. They are broad and tall - up to 6' at times - and covered with sunflowers. The flowers bring to mind those of Common or Kansas Sunflower (Helianthus annuus), though they are a little smaller. But sunflowers generally don't come in bushes, and my search through field guides confirmed my suspicions: this was no sunflower. That is, I could find no sunflower bushes in the Helianthus genus.

Of course, knowing what something isn't isn't very satisfying. Through a bit of luck, I eventually discovered my sunflower bushes to be Bush Sunflowers (Encelia californica). Duh. And to ice the cake, I found a cousin, Brittlebrush (E. farinosa) thriving in the barren lunar wasteland around the Salton Sea.

Bush Sunflowers are a many-branched perennial shrub with alternate, three-veined lanceolate to ovate leaves. The flowers covering the bush have 15 to 25 yellow ray flowers surrounding a center of brown-maroon disk flowers. It is a very common species in its range, which is from Santa Barbara County south to Baja, and inland to Riverside and San Bernardino Counties. It is typically found on coastal bluffs and open or bushy slopes below 2000', in chaparral and coastal sage scrub. It blooms from February through June.