Beautiful afternoon at "Lizard's Mouth" in the Santa Ynez Mountains! We came to this site to see chaparral - the natural community that dominates the slopes facing Santa Barbara. We saw great examples of some of the plant species' adaptations to our Mediterranean climate, including manzanita, chamise, bush poppy, and chaparral yucca with their tough water-conserving leaves. Also in bloom was snowdrop bush, which manages to survive much of the drought (perhaps due to deep tap roots) but drops it leaves (deciduous) by the fall, and only grows new ones when the rainy season begins.
 |
| Bush poppy |
 |
| Chamise |
 |
| California scrub oak |
 |
| Snowdrop bush |
 |
| Manzanita |
 |
| Chaparral yucca |
But really... we also came to enjoy the rock-hopping and great views. Even though it was a bit overcast, so we couldn't get a great ocean view, it was still pretty spectacular.
No comments:
Post a Comment