Some pictures from a 3-mile hike on Pulgas Ridge

that I took this morning. We've been here a few times. It's a nice trail, not very far from home, that proceeds through three different plant communities on one easy hike: oak woodland, coastal scrub, chaparral.

We start in the oak woodland.





Thalictrum, shooting up everywhere after recent rains.



And this little guy, that I'm struggling to identify. And by "struggling", I mean that I added it to the "ID please" group on Flickr and I'm waiting for someone to tell me what it is. Pedicularis densiflora, in a plant family I've never heard of before, Orobanchaceae.



There was a lot of it, growing alone and in small drifts.





I saw just a few mushrooms.



This one could be Amanita phalloides, the Death Cap.



Other fungi.



Streams a-streamin'. Yay, rain!





Fuchsia-flowered gooseberry (Ribes speciosum) Hillside gooseberry (Ribes californicum):



I didn't get a good picture of the flowers, so enjoy the thorns instead.



Leaving the oakwoodland, the trail rises into coastal sage.



I love it.



Here I saw (and smelled) lots of super-fragrant Lepechinia.



It was coming up everywhere, reminding me that I have one in a 4" pot that I grew from seed and need to do something with.



From here, you can see snow on Mount Hamilton (4,360 feet).



And big houses.



Up ahead, the chaparral is full of twisty manzanitas.









Still flowering.



Everywhere here I saw very vigorous stump-sprouting, a vital adaptation in a fire-prone ecosystem.





It's too soon for most spring wildflowers, but here's some Dodecatheon (Primulaceae), a geophyte.



We have six or seven species in California and I believe this one is Dodecatheon hendersonii. Relatively common in the Bay Area.



It was nice to get out... More rain on the way this weekend!