California Wildflowers
Northern California is beautiful! Yes you may have heard of or possibly even had the pleasure of experiencing it for yourself. It is not only a beautiful place to visit but also a great place to find some exquisite flowers for your Fleurings jewelry. These blooms are perfect to wear in our small vase necklaces and earrings.
Lets start with the stunning bright pink Jeffreys Shooting Star also known as the Mountain Shootingstar. You can find this water loving plant in wet meadows or growing along a stream bank. Find this beauty blooming during the summer and growing from the Sierra Nevadas all the way to Alaska.
Another beauty you can find amongst the Lupine, Bluebells, Iris, Lilies, Daisies and many other wildflowers is this special yellow flower in the Lily family the Pretty Face (Triteleia ixioides) or Golden ( Yellow) Brodiaea.
Pretty Face is a common flower in Yosemite and nearby mountain areas. You will find it at elevations ranging from Hite Cove (1,900 feet) to Olmsted Point (8,300 feet). Two similar-looking subspecies of Pretty Face inhabit the Yosemite area:and ssp. anilina and ssp. scabra. One way to tell them apart, should that be the sort of thing you enjoy doing, is to compare the anthers (the tips of the stamens, which are the bits sticking out of the center of the flower). On ssp. scabra they're white, and on ssp. anilina they'll be bluish. Ssp. scabra is also more likely to be found at lower elevations, with ssp. anilina more prevalent at 7,000 feet and above.
These flowers grow at the ends of an umbel (think of an upside-down umbrella) that sprouts from a bare stem, and an umbel may have as many as two dozen buds. Though they seldom all bloom at once, you will still usually find multiple flowers blooming together.