Simmler Road, Carrizo Plain National Monument, San Luis Obispo County, CA, 4/1/2016
On my first visit to Southern California’s Carrizo Plain National Monument, I discovered a sandy meadow covered with thousands of blossoming leafy stemmed coreopsis (Leptosyne calliopsidea). I returned to that spot the following dawn and waited for the sun to rise. Here’s the view looking north with the Temblor Range in the distance, as the first direct sunlight of the day reached the blossoms. Endemic to California, this annual herb grows in some of the southern coastal mountain ranges and the Mojave Desert. A few hundred years ago, California’s Central Valley was a vast grassland where antelope and elk grazed, and wildflowers graced the spring landscape. Today, Carrizo Plain survives as a remnant amid the state’s urban and agriculture development.
