Having made several trips to the Liebre Mts area this past spring, I wanted to try to get into a different part of it, so I decided on Fish Canyon. Coincidentally, the latest issue of Los Angeles magazine had a cover article on 10 great hikes and lo and behold one of them was Fish Canyon Narrows. So today I drove up the Grapevine past Castaic and turned onto Templin Highway. I drove to where it ends at a locked gate. In years past you could drive 2-1/2 more miles to Cienaga Campground and start your hike from there, but now that gate adds 5 round-trip miles to any excursion you plan. Fortunately, I had been granted the use of a key to that gate, so I continued on. The road, which is mostly dirt but paved in places, is seriously undermined and broken in places by the flow of water in the Lower Narrows about 1/2 mile from the campground, so I couldn't proceed safely beyond that point, but still it saved me 4 miles of walking on a hot, dusty road. Given that this is July and the Fish Canyon Narrows are not a higher-elevation location, I didn't have high expectations for there to be a great deal of flora in bloom, but I was able nevertheless to find some nice and interesting species. There is still water flowing through the Narrows, but earlier in the year or in a year with more rainfall there would probably be much more blooming. It should be noted that this area has nothing to do with the Fish Canyon that is above Azusa. An upside-down V next to the common name indicates a taxon that was new to me when I photographed it on this field trip, and an asterisk indicates a non-native species.

Dunn's lobelia
Lobelia dunnii var. serata
Campanulaceae
[Named for Matthias de l'Obel, 1538-1616, and George Washington Dunn, 1814-1905]

Canchalagua
Zeltnera venusta
Gentianaceae
[Named for Louis Zeltner, 1938- , and Nicole Zeltner, 1934- ]

Sneezeweed
Helenium puberulum
Asteraceae
[Said to be named by Linnaeus for Helen of Troy]

Lesser indian paintbrush
Castilleja minor ssp. spiralis
Scrophulariaceae
[Named for Domingo Castillejo Muñoz, 1744?-1793]

Creek monkeyflower
Mimulus guttatus
Phrymaceae

White sweetclover *
Melilotus albus
Fabaceae

California loosestrife
Lythrum californicum
Lythraceae

Southern cattail
Typha domingensis
Typhaceae

Scarlet monkeyflower
Mimulus cardinalis
Phrymaceae

Chalk dudleya
Dudleya pulverulenta
Crassulaceae
[Named for Chester David Dudley, 1868-1947]

White alder
Alnus rhombifolia
Betulaceae