A Wild Flower Pilgrimage 
GEORGE T. HASTINGS 
The early spring flowers of the desert and semi-desert regions 
of southern California make a remarkable display. Equally re- 
markable is the interest they arouse in the residents of the region. 
From the middle of March to the middle of April thousands of 
people make auto trips of from one hundred and fifty to two hun- 
dred and fifty miles just to see the flowers. This spring on sev- 
eral consecutive Sundays as many as five thousand cars were es- 
timated to have gone over the Ridge Route from Los Angeles and 
Pasadena to the San Joaquin Valley to see the lupines. It is cer- 
tainly no exaggeration to say that one hundred thousand people 
Came from various directions during the three weeks that the 
flowers were at their best. For some weeks previously the news- 
papers carried articles as to the outlook for a good show of flow- 
ers and directions as to where and when to go. The Automobile 
Association of Southern California did much to arouse interest. 
Filling stations on the roads to the valley hung out signs “Wild 
ower Information” and sometimes had bunches of the different 
flowers in bottles to show what could be looked for. In some sta- 
tions the flowers were named, in others the proprietors had but 
the haziest idea as to what the flowers were, but all could direct 
autoists to the best fields of bloom. 
When we stopped at a little plateau on the Grapevine, the last 
Section of the Ridge Route as it leads down into the valley, we 
looked out over an inspiring sight. Possibly five hundred feet be- 
low and a mile away was a lake of brilliant blue and violet extend- 
ing along the base of the mountain in a belt of from half a mile to 
over a mile wide. Scores of other cars were parked by us with 
hundreds of people enjoying the sight. Descending to the valley 
floor we found the ground so thickly carpeted with lupines, mostly 
Lupinus nanus, that one could not step among them without 
crushing some flowers. The dense covering of blue stretched for 
miles in both directions. Close at hand other flowers could be 
Sm with the lupines. A yellow evening primrose, ie 
r campestris, only four or five inches high, formed hig : 
t aad the taller lupines. Blue and white flowers of a gia, p 
ricolor, Pink heads of owl clover, Orthocarpus purpurascens, an 
nty cream cups, Platystemon californicus, were abundant but 
kA Y hidden by the taller plants. Blue dicks, Brodiaea cap Bae 
a cluster of purple-blue flowers on a slender stalk, were SC 
75 
