TRIUNFO CREEK PARK, SANTA MONICA MOUNTAINS
MARCH 2017 PAGE ONE




Triunfo Creek Park is a lovely 600-acre expanse of oak woodland, grasslands and massed displays of goldfields and other wildflowers adjacent to the community of Westlake Village. The entrance is near the intersection of Lindero Canyon Road and Triunfo Canyon Road. The main trail that most people use is called the Pentachaeta Trail, named for the Pentachaeta lyonii which blooms profusely in April and May, but there are many other less-travelled and sometimes almost indistinct trails across the higher reaches of the park, and it is along some of these trails that several very rare plants may be found, such as the first one below. I visited recently with NPS employee Tarja Sagar, Resident Botanist for the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area, and returned a few days later to walk the Pentachaeta Trail. The picture above is of Allium haematochiton or red-skinned onion. An asterisk next to the common name is for a non-native taxon, and an upside-down V is for a species that was new to me.


     
Bridges' gilia ^
Navarretia leptalea ssp. bicolor
Polemoniaceae

[So named because Thomas (Charles) Bridges, 1807-1865, was one of six individuals whom Asa Gray cited as collectors of this taxon]


 
 
Bigelow's coreopsis
Leptosyne bigelovii
Asteraceae
 
 



 
Agoura dudleya
Dudleya cymosa ssp. agourensis
Crassulaceae


   
Adobe popcorn flower
Plagiobothrys acanthocarpus
Boraginaceae


 
Annual bedstraw
Galium aparine
Rubiaceae

[Once thought to be introduced, the Jepson flora considers it as native to California. Other names for it are cleavers, clivers, goosegrass, catchweed, stickyweed, robin-run-the-hedge, sticky willy, sticky willow, stickyjack, stickeljack, and grip grass.]


 
 
 
Woolly lomatium
Lomatium dasycarpum ssp. dasycarpum
Apiaceae
 
 



   
Wild peony
Paeonia californica
Paeoniaceae




 
 
Balloon clover
Trifolium depauperatum var. truncatum
Fabaceae
 
 
Bigelow's selaginella
Selaginella bigelovii
Selaginellaceae
Bajada lupine
Lupinus concinnus
Fabaceae
Bitterroot
Lewisia rediviva var. minor
Montiaceae

Shooting star
Primula clevelandii var. clevelandii
Primulaceae


 

Blue-eyed grass
Sisyrinchium bellum
Iridaceae



   
Blue dicks
Dichelostemma capitatum ssp. capitatum
Themidaceae



 
Dwarf athysanus
Athysanus pusillus
Brassicaceae


PHOTO GALLERIES
INDEX
CALFLORA.NET PAGE TWO
OF EIGHT
CALIFORNIA PLANT NAMES: LATIN AND GREEK MEANINGS AND DERIVATIONS

Copyright © 2017 by Michael L. Charters.
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