Wildflowers in Perkins Canyon, Mount Diablo State Park. Photo by Scott Hein
Winter Showers Lead to Spring Flowers
As more and more of Mount Diablo’s flowers continue to bloom, we’re celebrating an extraordinary spring thanks to the seemingly endless rainfall of the past winter.
Some have been speculating that all that rain would lead to a historic wildflower season—”possibly the best in 20 years,” and they were right.
Although the open spaces of Mount Diablo and the Bay Area don’t have superblooms like southern California, they are home to a bountiful variety of native wildflowers that are blooming right now.
Blue dicks (Dipterostemon capitatus) on Mount Diablo. Photo by Al Johnson
The sheer diversity that you can find on a single hike on Mount Diablo is a sight to behold.
Within Mount Diablo State Park and the surrounding open spaces, it’s a particularly good year for blue dicks (Dipterostemon capitatus) and Ithuriel’s spear (Triteleia laxa); in some areas it’s possible to spot thousands of these vibrant blooms on short hikes!
Our 2023 Wildflower Photo Gallery
Check out a few blooms that have been spotted throughout Mount Diablo and its surrounding open spaces. Can you identify any that you’ve seen this spring?
Throughout the Diablo Range, enormous fields of flowers have bloomed. Recently, we observed some of the blooms in and around Panoche Valley and the in various places across the Diablo Range.
Massive areas covered in purple, orange, and yellow wildflowers are visible from a distance among the hills and peaks’ green growth and red serpentine soil. The blooms at Carrizo Plain National Monument are so large that they are visible from space!
