Friday, April 14. On the 1800' climb from the trailhead to Willson Peak. The trees were denser lower down, but after a little climbing I was in grassy oak savannah. Mostly deciduous blue or black oaks, with occasional live oaks in the mix. A few flowers added to all this lush grass, some familiar (poppies, clarkias, phacelia, fiddlenecks, violets), some less so...

Crepis sp., either C. capillaris (smooth hawksbeard) or C. vesicaria subsp. taraxacifolia (beaked hawksbeard). The Jepson key calls out the seeds as the discriminating element and the descriptions are close. C. capillaris (only) appears on a Pine Mountain Association checklist but the bloom time suggests the other. Non-native, but the butterfly doesn't seem to mind.

Castilleja attenuata (valley tassels). One of the least showy of the "owl's clovers".

The broad view down to Hunting Hollow from about 3/4 of the way up Willson Peak. The upper Santa Clara Valley is behind the first ridge. In the *very* faint distance, maybe the Monterey Peninsula.

The top. The Willson Peak serpentine "outcrop" is really the tailings of a not-very-successful Civil War era copper mine. It's still something of a mess. But this odd rock can grow flowers, especially at the margins or away from the worst of the gravel.

Poppies and goldfields.

Add cream cups, yellow pincushion, and silver puffs.

Streptanthus glandulosus (bristly jewel flower). I've only seen these once before, also on serpentine. The wider basal leaves have already dried up.

Gilia tricolor (birds eye gilia) too. With goldfields, cream cups, popcorn flowers, and California poppies.

Uropappus lindeyi (silver puffs). Previous mis-identified as Achyrachaena mollis (blow wives). The big puffs are bunches of seeds. The actual flowers barely open. And while they look weedy, sort of like dandelions, these are native.

Phacelia distans (common phacelia). These tended to grow alone.

Chaenactis glabriuscula (yellow pincushion).

Heading down from Willson Peak toward Grizzly Gulch and Tule Pond, there were more flowers in the grass. Here, goldfields (the sheet of yellow), and butter-and-eggs (the lighter yellow in with the goldfields), and California buttercup (the scattered yellows in the green grass).

Viola pedunculata (Johnny-jump-up).

Castilleja densiflora (dense flower owl's clover). I think. It's not hairy and thread-leaved so it's not C. exserta. The styles poking out say it's not C. brevistyla or attunata. Too big for attenuata too. Those are the only "owl's clovers" here. BUT Jepson says leaf width is < 3mm and these are more.

Castilleja exserta (purple owl's clover) for comparison. This was from farther on today, up on Wasno Ridge. Very hairy. Thread-like leaves. Pink too, but Castilleja densiflora can be pinker than in the previous pictures.

Plectritis macrocera (white plectritis). Just of little puff of white: the whole inflorescence is only about an inch high. A Valerian relative.

Plectritis macrocera (white plectritis), showing the leaves.

Tule Pond.

More goldfields down here.

Same place, 2009. The goldfield density was a bit higher on that trip. My sense is that the heavier 2017 rains have produced lusher grass at the expense of the annual flower display. Just the opposite of the situation in the southern California deserts!

Still, the goldfields were nicely dense under this gray pine today. Shooting stars (Primula hendersonii) provide the pink in the background.

Lots of lichens (technically not Spanish moss, although many would call it that) on the blue oaks down here. And, while the trails this far back were by no means crowded, I wasn't alone out here either. Now a climb to Wasno Ridge ...

On Wasno Ridge. More blue oak savannah. Some gray pines, more in the distance than right here. This is very representative of this trip's ridgetop hiking: a wide fire-road trail with leafing-out deciduous oaks and lots green grass. Today''s route takes me along the ridge for about a mile and a half, then a drop down to Kelly Lake.

I got down to Kelly Lake a little after 6: a long day. I was one of six parties at the lake tonight (plus one or two a little downstream). This was taken Saturday. The shadows were a bit too long when I arrived.