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C H A P T E R 4 A Cent Fading ury of Bromes and the of California Wildflowers T H E \ L I 4 R L O T H O F \ A N P A S Q U A L : I'OPPL L A N D \ C)F T H E R I E S A But once in the year is this cloth of gold IJnfolded for men to see And spread at the feet of the nlountains old For the Easter jubilee; I am kneeling in rapture hefore its shrine. Have you seen it, and worshiped, 0 neighbor hlline? -Fliraheth Grinnell in 189I ' The diffusion of both brornes continued with increasing rapidit\; and in a very few years large patches of either could he found in all parts of the valley and the surrounding hills. They are now among the most wide-spread, abundant and well established grasses of the region. -S,im~lel Parish ( ~ 9 0 9 ) The pinnacle for southern California wildflower lovers at the turn of the twentieth century was the famous poppy field of San Pasqual, the mesa that now hosts the suburbs of Pasadena and Altadena. Citizens of Los Angeles annually visited this landmark by rail every spring from the early 1880s to 1920.The mesa flowers may have been the inspiration of Charles Fredrick Holder's proposal to hold the now-famous Rose Parade in I 890. While oat and black mustard pastures grew along the coast, wildflower fields still covered interior California well into the twentieth century. Many Los Angeles suburbs celebrated annual flower festivals as late as the 1920s. Since that time, the cloth of San Pasqual has been cut up for urh,ln17~t1o11, hut res~cietitiand tourliti of the 1.0s Angeles megalopol~s visited \vilclflower fields ever farther a\va! from the expanding cit!; first tra\ellng to the ~nland alle\ s, then to the S m Jo,lqu~n \'alle\, \x here floner fest~r d s \\.err held , ~ t As\ 111 and Sh'lfte~tronl 1930 to 1960, and ult~matel! to the deierts. The shrinking flonel- fields not on11 succunihed to land clearing, hut also to the I apld expmslon of a net\ iulte ot mr as^\ e European gr'tsses beg~nnlng In tlie T 8905, termed "seiond a\ e e\ot~cs"(Head\ 19-7). The most irulent of'the neu In\ ,lders ,Ire t\\ o hromes, red hrome (BroSamuel Par~sh eplgrapli descr~bes ahor e, ,xxompmled b~ the slender n d d oat (ALJCIIII l ~ ~ z ~ l ~ ~ a t ~ ~ ) , summer mustard (BILTSSICLT gcrrx-i~l~~ta), m d other ne\i exotic specles that r'lced ,ihe~dot gr'lzlng m d agr~culture, s n ~ l lov Ing up most of C ~ l l f o r ~ l ~ d ' s LT 11dflouer fields h! the 1111d-to Llte t n entleth centun. Non the C allforii~a st'1te go\ ernment has ded~cated t l o ~ er resen es to protect the state flon er. the , ~ l ~ f o r n ~ a p o p p . \Xrhllc t h i flor d s! mbol 1s ~1111lkel1 to expel lence the t'lte ot ~ t s otfici,~l state colleque, the extinct g r u z l ~ bear, the f u t u ~ e of the p o p p hodes p o o ~ IJ p\en modern land ~ n ~ i ~ ~ g e m e n t and land del clopment 'Icrois Calitornla. \y'ddflon ers ~ l l u m n ~ l t e d \ 1rt~1'11lx ,III of C a l l f o n l ~ ~ during the pistoral clcl\ s of the 5panlsh , ~ n d I\Iewcan periods, \\ hether 1ld1,lndsor 111 estock ~ x s t ~ ~ r c . 4s s t ~ t e d 171 Kreuet (1883:q 6 ; 1, a l ~ t o r n ~ a lands "uere the dehght of hotatlists and the p,iradrse o f cattle." Hou e\ et. the dexth of c ~ p - ~ t a l p m ented tlie dexelopment of Ccll~torn~,l's n,~tur,llresoulies (Cleland the late 1860s. and corn n x s groum in hottomlands near rivers (Cleland I 964: 14j 1. Krheat and cotton f~lrming de\.elopcci in the Centr'll \'alley in response to dem,lnds ofthe Civil Khr. Li~estock gr'uing continued to dominate until circa I 880 clue to the Spanish-Jleuican land grant s!.stern ; r:~~icIier...

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