A California native, served sunny side up
It’s California Native Plant Week and I’m profiling a different California native each day that is on my particular wish list.
The first is Coulter’s Matilija poppy, Romneya coulteri.
The flowers of the tall and dramatic Matilija poppy, Romneya coulteri, look eggish, growing atop an 8-12 foot plant. A perennial, this grey-green leafed California native, prefers dry, disturbed soil near road cuts and along rocky streams.
Matilija poppy, 7 inches wide, Shelter Cove, California
In my area, it’s found beside the Merced River along Hwy 140 going into Yosemite, but I’ve seen it in Monterey, CA in the median strips and planting areas along the roadsides and as far north as Shelter Cove, CA. In my neighbor’s garden, it grows rampantly with sprinklers going summer long and suckers madly, multiplying in all corners of the place.
Matilija poppy stands 8 feet tall or more
This photo was taken in Shelter Cove, CA where the Matilija (Ma-TILL-a-ha) grows wildly beside a gas station parking lot. Named for the Matilija River in Ventura County, CA, it was discovered in the 1860’s by Irish botanist, Thomas Coulter, who named it after his friend, John Thomas Romney Robinson, an astronomer. Coulter, collected and studied plants in Californa and Mexico.…