Diablo Recovery

What a Great Wildflower Year Looks Like in the Spring

by Joan Hamilton

June 3, 2014

This article is part of a monthly series of photos and articles on the transformation of Mount Diablo following the 2013 Morgan Fire, funded by special donations from Bay Nature readers. You can find our stories, as well as event listings, iNaturalist sightings, and magazine features, at baynature.org/diablo.

Regular visitors to Mount Diablo are calling this spring one of the best wildflower years they’ve ever seen. Here’s what that looked like in May in the Morgan Fire burn area.

Chia (Salvia columbariae var. columbariae)

Mount Diablo fairy lantern (Calochortus pulchellus), scarlet larkspur (Delphinium cardinale) and Chinese houses (Collinsia)

Golden ear drops (Dicentra chrysantha) and California poppies.

Mules ear (Wyethia mollis) and a wind poppy (Papaver heterophyllum)

Phacelia and scarlet larkspur (Delphinium cardinale)

Whispering bells (Emmenanthe penduliflora)

About the Author

Joan Hamilton

Joan Hamilton is producer of Audible Mount Diablo, a podcast for people who love the outdoors and want to know more about the plants, animals, and history of the Bay Area. Her interest in fires was sparked by the 2013 Morgan Fire in Mount Diablo State Park. She wrote two articles and numerous web posts for Bay Nature about nature's recovery from that conflagration, and has been a fire follower ever since. Most recently, she's been working on Diablo Range Revealed, a series that explores life in the inland coast range after the SCU Lightning Complex fire. You can find evidence at savemountdiablo.org/learn/diablo-range-revealed/.