What color is the flower?
Flowers that can bloom in more than one color will appear in the search results
for each of the their possible colors (although this site may not have pictures that
show all of these possibilities.) This can lead to a picture of a yellow flower showing
up with the search results for the white flowers. This is by design and is not an error.
Similarly, a deliberate overlap in the color designations means both the Red search
and the Blue search will show flowers with the intermediate color of purple.
What size is the flower?
These size groupings are approximate with flowers near the borderlines being
included in both size groups for the purpose of the search.
Is the flower solitary or clustered ?
Is the flower on a stalk of its own or is it part of a larger grouping of flowers.
Is the flower simply or oddly shaped?
Here we define simply shaped to mean the flower has a rotational symmetry.
This describes flowers with an over-all shape which is round, wheel, tubular,
urn, cup, or bell like.
Show me some examples of this
Is the plant woody or herbaceous?
The woody plants are trees, shrubs, and some vines. Woody plants are always perennial.
A herbaceous plant does not produce woody, persistent tissue and generally
dies back at the end of each growing season. Annual plants are
always herbaceous. However, herbaceous plants can be either perennial or annual.
The first year's growth of a woody plant is often herbaceous.
Is the plant native or non-native?
It is unlikely you will know if a flower is a native or non-native unless
you are already familiar with it. Choose "Doesn't matter" if you don't know.
What season does it typically bloom?
In Southern California I tend to think of a year as broken into five general overlapping blooming seasons. They are:
Winter:
January to February
These “Seasons” should be thought of as vague guidelines rather than precise definitions of blooming times. There are many reasons for this vagueness. The dates of a blooming season can shift greatly from year to year depending on weather patterns. Plant habitat plays a big role in determining the time blooming as well. For example, a plant growing on an exposed south face generally begins blooming and finishes much earlier than the same plant growing on a shaded north face. Indeed, plants growing in a riparian area with a dependable water source may bloom year round. If conditions are correct some plants may experience a second blooming season later in the year. Many plants bloom for a relatively brief period of time and consequently one should not expect any given species to be blooming throughout the duration of the season in which it is listed. Finally, we often do not have reliable data about the typical flowering season here in the Santa Monica Mountains. In many cases I have consulted multiple conflicting sources and in the end made an informed best guess of a “typical” blooming season.
