Careless Feet Could Doom Our Next Wildflower Super Bloom

There’s no specific definition of what constitutes a wildflower super bloom.

“Super bloom is to some extent in the eye of the beholder,” said Evan Meyer, executive director of the Theodore Payne Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes native plants.

But according to several late April visitors at the Antelope Valley California Poppy reserve, it’s not here.

Why some folks feel disappointed

Gladys Talley, a history teacher at Serrano High School in the High Desert town of Phelan, took the day off work in hopes of seeing the hills about 15 miles west of Lancaster carpeted in orange.

“It was supposed to be more magnificent,” Talley said. “I'm not kind of impressed, to be honest with you.”

Gladys Talley said she feels energized after spending time outside.

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Volunteers on site with the Poppy Reserve Mojave Desert Interpretive Association say the Reserve saw its peak bloom about a week ago. One hypothesis is that the lankier, yellow fiddleneck flowers crowded out the poppies.

There are higher concentrations of poppies on private land east of the reserve.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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“You get spoiled after you see the huge, huge booms,” said Talley, who visits annually. “It's nature, we have to accept it the way it comes.”

While Talley said she was disappointed, the trip wasn’t wasted. The violins of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons filled her ears as she walked through the Reserve. She planned to find a bench along the reserve’s eight miles of trails.

What appears to be a wild bloom in the sunflower family grows along the highway near Castaic.

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Mariana Dale

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“There's plenty of room for everybody to find a little spot to like just recharge, re-energize and just be with yourself,” Talley said. “I'm going to turn off the music and just sit there quietly and just enjoy it without any disturbance.”

Don't doom the bloom

There are two important rules for visiting the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve — or really any field of wildflowers:

1. Stay on the trails.
2. Don’t step on the flowers.

Here’s why:

Every flower is a little miracle of nature. Sarah Kimball, a plant biologist at UC Irvine’s Center for Environmental Biology, told LAist earlier this month that the seeds of desert plants wait for specific cues to germinate, including rain and temperature. Not all flowers come up every year.

The silky, orange-petaled California poppy is what’s called an “annual.” Each seed has one season a year to sprout and flower.

When you step on one before the slender green seed pods have a chance to grow and burst, it dooms a whole generation of new flowers.

“You're basically making the next super bloom that much less likely to happen if you step on them,” said Meyer, with the Theodore Payne Foundation.

Areas devoid of native plants are also susceptible to invasive grasses.

Once the California poppy petals drop, the plant grows a slender green pod that fills with tiny brown and black seeds.

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Mariana Dale

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LAist

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“An area that might be this year a carpet of poppies, for instance,” Meyer said, “if enough people step on it, you'll come back during the next wet winter and it'll just be a field of grass.”

How to be respectful

LAist producer Megan Botel contributed to this story.