Manroots and Cheeseweed

Posted on May 1, 2003 in Plants Writing

Why then do you try to ‘enlarge’ your mind? Subtilize it. – Herman Melville

For a long time, I’ve harbored a desire to promote a consciousness among California writers of the landscape in which they live. This is one of the reasons behind the hikes I’ve started to lead into the local canyons, beaches, and mountains. Many writers don’t know how to that the things that look like snapdragons — except that the flowers look like miniatures of the Sydney Opera House — are called lupines or that there are more than one species of mustard. How many know that though the Spanish invader Black Mustard is common, that other mustards predate the Columbian invasion? Most, if pressed can point out a California poppy, but a few will confuse orange Mariposa Lillies (or Tulips — depending on which guidebook you read) with that more famous plant or call Orange Bush Monkeyflowers “honeysuckles” because the true name isn’t known to them.

If we’re going to write about California, we should know our native plant life. And the names — the names alone — should startle and excite the imagination:

• Desert Camas
• Catalina Mariposa Tulip (literally a “butterfly flower”)
• Matilija Poppy
• Cream Cups
• Peppergrass
• Milkmaids
• Cucamonga Manroot (the large tuber is shaped like a man)
• Dusty Maiden
• Mojave Popcorn Flower
• Locoweed
• Cheeseweed
• Monks Hood
• Sticky Phalecia
• Cockleburr

These are just some of the names of those plants you have seen but allow to remain anonymous. Get a good guidebook (like this one) and add depth to your writings about this place where you live.

If you live in Los Angeles or Orange County, contact me about one of the writers hikes I lead. I’m learning, too.