Flowering Plants on the Fossil Hill Trail

March 17, 2004

This walk starts at the parking lot at the Sutherland Drive entrance to Shell Ridge Open Space. Start by turning left. It includes a short tour of the quarry in Quarry Hill to the left and then proceeds down the hill towards Indian Pond. At the fence line just before the pond, turn right onto the footpath. This path takes you to the road just above Bramhall Pond and then, staying right at each intersection, returns you to the parking lot at Sutherland Drive. For more thourough directions check out the Fossil Hill Recommended Hike.

Ref.	Flower			Refs.
No.	Common Name	Color	Location	(1)(2)	Comments
1	Bunch Grass	---------	Trail back of Fossil Hill	-----	About a dozen
2	Blue-eyed Grass	Blue	All over	350	Just starting
3	Foothill Penstemon	Blue	Quarry area	336	Five seen
4	Storksbill, white stem	Magenta	Roadsides	286	Hundreds
5	California Poppy	Orange	All over	224	Hundreds
6	Geranium, Dove's Foot	Purple	Roadsides	284	One seen
7	Vetch, Winter	Purple	All over	326	Not yet in bloom
8	Horehound	White	All over	82	Upper roadside
9	Pepper Grass, Poorman's	White	Roadsides	24	Not in bloom
10	Wavy-leaf soap plant	White	All over	12	Leaves only
11	Woodland Star	White	Near parking lot	88	One seen
12	Bush Lotus--Deerweed	Yellow	Quarry area	48 (2)	Not yet in bloom
13	Buttercups, Birdsfoot	Yellow	All over	154	Several hundred
14	Butterweed, Common	Yellow	Roadsides	208	A few
15	Fiddlenecks	Yellow	Roadsides	226	One seen
16	Lotus	Yellow	Quarry area	180	Not yet in bloom
17	Mustard, Black	Yellow	Quarry area	140	Hundreds
18	Telegraph Weed	Yellow	Roadsides	214	One seen

(1) Peterson's "Pacific States Wildflowers"
(2) Keater, "Plants of the East Bay Parks