NPS photo

Green prairies and wildflower blooms of Mori Point during Spring

Comprised of native bunchgrasses, grasslands once covered large areas of the California coast.  As their name implies, bunchgrasses such as purple needle grass, tufted hair grass, blue wild rye, and California oat grass form discrete clumps and are not matt forming. Small plants such as checkerbloom, iris, sanicle, and lomatium filled in the spaces between the grasses along with an abundance of bulbs such as red onion, soap plant, Ithuriel’s spear, and brodea. Tiny annuals such as goldfields, tidy tips, and clarkia carpet the grasslands each spring. In the summer the grasslands turn from green to golden as species go dormant during California’s yearly drought. Native American gathered the bulbs and seeds from grasslands for food in the fall harvest and burned them back for lush green grass to attract prey animals such as deer and elk in the spring. Most coastal prairie areas along the California coast have been overgrazed, farmed, or developed. What remains in the park delight visitors craving wildflowers after the long fall and winter.