Sunday, April 06, 2008

Poppies in Old Agoura - April, 2008

Since last September, we've had 16.8" of rain at our house northwest of Los Angeles, which probably represents a below-normal total. However, 12.2" of that fell in a single month, January, which is probably the optimal time for encouraging spring flowers. The hills in the Conejo Valley are lush and green, dotted with yellow mustard and orange poppies. However, every silver lining has a cloud, and what grows now might burn later.

We'll worry about that later. For now, here are some pictures of the California golden poppy, our state flower, taken at Old Agoura Park in Agoura Hills.






The poppy's petals are somewhat translucent, giving a nice shadow effect where petals overlap when seen through strong light.






The flowers shown above are actually orange, the most common color of this flower; the petals can look somewhat yellowish depending on the light. That said, the next two photos show that true yellow and multicolor versions also exist...






...and they even come in pure white! I don't recall seeing this in earlier years,,,




Finally, here's another extreme close-up of the common orange variety:


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3 Comments:

At 7:33 AM, Blogger lascaux said...

Another waltz down memory lane this was the first flower I ever grew, collecting seed from their dried out pods and broadcasting over the dirt. Today I'd wonder about protection laws. But for kids with any interest it's a gratifying, low-tech introduction. What's up with the white? Indiscriminating butterflies?

 
At 8:58 PM, Blogger Robert Fovell said...

I've never seen white poppies before that day. The other day, I finally had the chance to go poppy viewing in the Mojave -- pictures to come someday -- and I tried to be on the lookout for non-orange poppy blooms. I can't say I saw any, perhaps because the immense carpet or orange saturated my senses :-)

 
At 8:28 AM, Blogger Alireza said...

hi Robert Fovell
i'm Alireza from Marine Meteorological Office - anzali Iran
excuse me for my bad english !
i am working on MM5 and WRFV3.1 , i compiled both them on redhat 4 but now i decided to run MM5 and WRF in Mandriva 2008 , I have problem in WPS , both WRF and WPS compiled successfully but "link_grib.csh" dont work ! error --> "bad $(/)"
(this script work successfully in Redhat 4 !!!)
do you know how can i fix it in Mandriva 2008 shell
thanks
please send me your advice to fard792@gmail.com

 

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