Wildflowers paint a picture of Southern California's past

Sunset, April, 1992 by Don Normark

Here is what spring looked like throughout much of Southern California a few generations back. In this photograph, taken last May at Tejon Ranch on the south flank of the Tehachapi Mountains, the yellow carpet is composed of goldfields, a sunflower relative that produces up to 800 flowers per square foot.

Blue thimble gilias and California poppies paint distant hillsides blue and orange. The California Native Plant Society is currently lobbying the state parks department to acquire several hundred acres just outside the privately owned ranch for a preserve that would protect the 72 species of wildflowers growing there, as well as native bunchgrasses.