Some of the State's Tiniest Wildflowers Are Now Popping

Wildflowers around the Golden State are well-known for their colorful attributes, their petal-y panache, and, occasionally, for their notable sizes.

True, California poppies are more petite, but lupines can be larger, and spying a spray of sun-bright blossoms on a hillside, from a distance, isn't an unknown experience.

But when things go bigger, they can also go smaller, much smaller, and some of our state's best-known wee wildflowers are now making a sprightly showing near Big Bear Lake.

These quirky cuties are nicknamed "belly plants," because properly viewing them might require a person to get low to the ground, on their stomach, for a closer look.

But there are a number of strange things about these wee wildflowers, such as their appearance on the striking Pebble Plains of the San Bernardino Mountains.

The area "... exhibits a type of soil found nowhere else in the world," and about a dozen of the small specimens that grow around the Pebble Plains are unique to Big Bear.

How to best see these blossoms? Join the Baldwin Lake Wildflower Walk, at Baldwin Lake Ecological Reserve.

The walks are rambling out among the belly-beautiful blossoms each Saturday through the end of June 2022, with the exception of April 16.

The cost to join this joyful, big-of-sky, small-of-flower outing?

It's as free as a crisp mountain breeze, which will likely be offering participants a refreshing respite as they look down, and around, for these diminutive delights.

But there are more nature-nice events in the area, if you visit the mountain community on a spring Saturday.

And if you're a fan of the Big Bear eagles and their chick, which will remain in the lake-close nest for a few more weeks, ahead of its expected fledging?

Stop by Dana Point Park in Fawnskin, over the next few Saturdays, for a peek through a scope set up by a naturalist. You might be able to see Jackie and Shadow in the nest, or even one or both bald eagles in flight.