GROWING UP FOREST WISE Mt. Baldy Environmental Education offers programs for every age and for every season MT. BALDY VISITOR CENTER Home Directions PROGRAMS FOR SCHOOLS Program Introduction Pre-school through Eighth Grade Programs High School Environmental Studies Forest in a Box / Visits to Your School SUMMER PROGRAMS FOR CHILDREN Forest Adventures Summer Institute PROGRAMS FOR ALL AGES Volunteering Donating A Birthday to Remember Facility Rental Walks on the Wild Side SCOUTING PROGRAMS VISITOR CENTER SERVICES Passes and Permits Trail Information SAN GABRIEL CANYON ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION CENTER Programs for Schools Programs for Adults Brian the Bighorn says: "Don't be sheepish. Come by and visit!"	Signs of the Seasons 11 September 2007 Along the Mt. Baldy Road Now in late summer, three yellow-flowered shrubs bloom along Mt. Baldy Road. The first encountered when driving up from Padua is Parish's goldenbush. This small shrub is a sphere of stiff unbranched stems with bright green, resinous leaves topped by bright golden-yellow flowers. Should you ever have a chance to get up close and personal with this plant, rub the leaves between your fingers and carefully take a whiff. Mmmmm .... good! Later in the season, the dried flowers remain on the stem looking like fluffy beige balls. More of these goldenbushes grow along the west side of the road approaching the rest area. At the road's edge, a wispier plant grows. It has thread-like, turquoise-greenish colored leaves with yellow daisy-like flowers at the top. It topples or sways in the wind. This is senecio, or shrubby butterweed. The name "senecio" alludes to the finished flowers which have long gray plumes representative of an old man's beard.      Click on the image to learn more about each shrub and for the photographer's name. The third yellow-blooming plant is scale-broom. It is now so heavily laden with small yellow flowers all up and down the stem that it flops over. It is usually just twiggy, not flowery. Scale-broom is an indicator of alluvium, that mixture of sand, gravel and rounded rocks found in floodplains and washes. Scale-broom grows abundantly along the Mt. Baldy Road south of Icehouse Canyon and in the wash section of Barrett-Stoddard Road. But it has always baffled me why it also grows around the top of the Hogback! Recently I got the answer to this puzzle. While standing at the canyon overlook at Cow Canyon Saddle, it was pointed out to me that along these canyon walls, there are remnants of very ancient alluvial terraces subsequently cut down by the creek. The scale-broom even after thousands of years still grows on them. Mystery explained. 15 March 2007 Along the West Fork Road Yes, we've had the driest rain season to date. But the records only began in downtown Los Angeles in 1877. A fire-defense planner said the moisture levels in vegetation revealed that most of the plants lingered on the brink of death. A CNPS-SGM newsletter writer says pray for rain, dance for rain so that the plants will live. Native plants have been surviving these conditions for thousands of years! Of course, they are going to come back. Just take a walk through the canyons remembering that this is only mid-March. Here's what I saw walking a mile up the West Fork to Bear Creek. New green leaves on walnut, bigleaf maple, willow, ash, alder and black cottonwood. Fremont cottonwood will leaf out later. Small wildflowers have sprouted: clarkia, California poppy, scarlet larkspur, California fuchsia. Some are even in bloom just like they are every year at this time: chickweed, miner's lettuce, bittercress, lacepod. Shrubs and subshrubs in flower are: four o'clock, hoaryleaf [white] ceanothus, hairy [blue] ceanothus, golden currant, basket bush, whiteflower currant. Vines flowering now: wild cucumber, California blackberry. In the cool crannies of the rock, ferns and dudleyas appear as always: California polypody, lanceleaf live-forever, goldback fern, and coffee fern. Purple rockcress is blooming. Spring comes to the canyon in a rush. Even with only a little rain. As always. 7 March 2007 Glendora Ridge Road One-fourth mile west of Village Bigberry manzanita blooms. Its picturesque red trunks revealed now from last summer's fire clearance along the road. 24 February 2007 San Gabriel Canyon 1000 feet higher Only the stork's bill and hoaryleaf ceanothus are in flower at this elevation. Hoaryleaf ceanothus grows at the lowest elevation of all the mountain lilacs (Ceanothus spp.) in the San Gabriel Mountains. It is also the first to bloom. En masse, the fragrance of the black-centered white flower clusters is very sweet, carrying for a long distance. It is found in abundance on the hillsides between the two dams. Leaves, light orangeish-brown and bone-dry, on laurel sumac on the lower slopes, give evidence of the severity and duration of this winter's frosts. Farther above, on the higher ground, the leaves are crimson on the top of the shrub and dark green at the base. These are the survivors. 23 February 2007 El Encanto Trail Hwy 39 and Old San Gabriel Canyon Road Today I find flowers, lots of little ones, in shapes of five-pointed stars and Maltese crosses, spoked wheels and plump doorknobs ... © Michael Charters flowers in multi-colored hues blue, magenta, dark red-purple, white, yellow ... flowers with evocative English names like birdeye speedwell, stork's bill, henbit, chickweed, sweet alyssum, bermuda buttercup, everlasting, sunflower, sowthistle, mulefat, wild cucumber. Why so many bird and animal names for flowers? Have you ever seen the red flowers of sycamore or the yellow flowers and red-winged samaras and pink buds of bigleaf maple? © Michael Charters and © James Reveal Ferns unfurl; spikemosses grow upright like tiny trees; succulent fingers of San Gabriel Mountains live-forever flop. © Michael Charters Ground squirrels active, chasing and calling. Blue butterflies named spring azures, little bits of amethyst sky, flit and flutter over old seed heads. Can spring be faraway? 20 February 2007 Whiteflower currant and California bay tree bloom around Hogsback and across the street from the school. 10 February 2007 Golden currant (Ribes aureum) blooms at Santa Fe Dam Nature Center Trail 7 February 2007 Whiteflower currant (Ribes indecorum), hillside gooseberry (Ribes californicum) and California peony bloom along Joatngna Trail at Lower San Antonio Station. The difference between gooseberries and currants is that gooseberries have prickles on the stems while currants do not.    The California peony flower smells like licorice! © 2004 Michelle Cloud-Hughes JANUARY THROUGH JUNE 2006 OCTOBER THROUGH DECEMBER 2005 SEPTEMBER 2005 AUGUST 2005 JULY 2005 USDA Forest Service in partnership with San Gabriel Mountains Heritage Association	BULLETIN BOARD First and third Wednesday of each month at 9:00 am, Walks on the Wild Side at Mt. Baldy Visitor Center Last Saturday of each month at 9:00 am, Spend a Saturday Morning in the Forest. Meet at San Gabriel Canyon Volunteer Naturalist Training Program, informational meeting, Saturday, October 27, 2007 from 1 to 4 pm, San Gabriel Canyon Gateway, Hwy 39 View entire Calendar Signs of the Seasons Would you like to be added to our email event notification list? Send a message to: email AT mtbaldyeducation DOT org
Email: info AT mtbaldyeducation DOT org | Web Site: http://mtbaldyeducation.org Mt. Baldy Visitor Center, P.O. Box 592, Mt. Baldy, CA 91759 Phone (909) 982-2829 (visitor information), (909) 982-2879 (education staff), FAX: (909) 931-7130