Brilliance signals spring

Forget the vernal equinox and Easter.

Wildflowers mark the real advent of spring in Santa Barbara County.

From yellow mustard-splashed hillsides along Highway 101 south of Gaviota Pass to ceanothus on Highway 154 and the ubiquitous California poppy, wildflowers pop up everywhere.

They come in coats of many colors - yellow, red, purple, white, gold, blue and pink. Keep your eyes open for hummingbird sage, lilac lupines, little white morning glories on roadsides and orange monkey flowers.

The colors now erupting along the area's roadways aaren't the best ever, but they're not bad, an expert says.

“This is a fair to good wildflower year - not great,” said Charles Blair with the California Native Plant Society.

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Wildflowers depend on the weather, he said. Rain helps - but so do temperatures.

“This year it was not only dry, but very cold,” Blair said. Rainfall has been just over one-third of normal and the area was hit by record low temperatures in January.

Last year, which saw a fair amount of rain and warm spells in between, was a “spectacular” wildflower season, he said.

Blair divides wildflowers into two groups - spring annuals and shrubs. While there hasn't exactly been a “picture postcard display” of smaller annuals, he said, “what's really great this year are shrubs.”

Along with white and blue ceanothus (a cobalt blue variety is particularly vivid on Highway 1 north of Lompoc), shrubs include bush lupines (purple to lavender), bush poppies (yellow), prickly phlox (pink), and manzanita (white).

Spring wildflowers start to bloom in mid-February, with March, April and May the peak months.

While black mustard is believed to have been introduced by the mission fathers, he said, all native wildflowers were used by the Chumash for various things such as fiber, food and medicinal purposes.

Meanwhile, let's enjoy nature's botanical rainbow. And though spring's display will soon be gone, there are also fall wildflowers, Blair noted.

Roadside Attractions is a weekly chronicle of sights along the Central Coast's main commuter routes. Sally Cappon can be reached at sjcappon@aol.com.

April 10, 2007