name would imply, features fragrant but unassuming California sagebrush (often called “cowboy cologne”) along with various species of sage like black and white sage. California buckwheats—which flower through much of the year—are common, and California brittlebush puts on a bright yellow sunflowerlike display in the early spring. Larger shrubs include leafy toyon and lemonade berry as well as ceanothus.
Chaparral is often mixed in along with sage scrub (if you want to get super technical, we’re in a subecoregion of the California chaparral and woodlands ecoregion called the California coastal sage and chaparral ecoregion), but generally the plants in chaparral are tougher, need less water, and are more likely to poke you with something. You can usually find these plants on the sunnier south-facing slopes in the park. Prickly pear cactus can be found here, along with Shaw’s agave and otherworldly Dudleya species, chamise, manzanita, and yucca.
COULD IT HAVE BEEN TOYONWOOD?
An oft-repeated but most likely apocryphal story about how Hollywood got its name goes like this: There are large bushes growing all over the Santa Monica Mountains here that produce showy red berries in late fall and early winter. Heteromeles arbutifolia is commonly known as toyon, but to the swarms of new residents coming to Los Angeles from the East, the plant looked enough like holly to be called California holly or Christmas berry. A lot of holly here, therefore, Hollywood. Sounds good, right?
That origin of Hollywood has been attributed to Daeida Wilcox Beveridge. If you start digging into it, you’ll find Beveridge is also the source of about a half dozen alternate origins for the name, too. There’s more evidence that Beveridge got the name from her neighbor Ivar Weid, who lived in what he called Holly Canyon . . . which, actually, might have been named after those toyon after all. As they say, “This is the West—when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
No matter where the name came from, toyon is still plentiful in the hills of Griffith Park, and its bright red berries are a clear indicator that winter is on its way. Toyon is also the only California native plant to retain its indigenous name (from the Bay Area Ohlone people) and makes a wonderful drought-tolerant evergreen shrub, providing food and habitat to dozens of species throughout the year. Toyon was named the official plant of Los Angeles in 2012.
When its berries are present, toyon is easy to spot on the hills around Los Angeles.
Purple sage (Salvia leucophylla) blooms at different elevations for months, while delicate mariposa lilies (genus Calochortus) are more elusive.
Southern bush monkeyflower (Diplacus longiflorus) explodes with color in late spring.
Both plant communities feature a variety of endemic trees, including coast live oaks, western sycamores (which lose their leaves in the early winter, giving us a tiny taste of fall), and rare California black walnut trees, which are found only in the L.A. area.
Because Griffith Park has had a lot of different caretakers—and they haven’t always been mindful of native species—there are also many introduced and invasive species that have found their way into the park.
Community Science
One of the most exciting and effective ways of learning how to identify the flora and fauna you spot in Griffith Park—and anywhere, really—is by engaging in community science. Sometimes called “citizen science,” community science is the term for when scientists work with us regular folks to gather and interpret data about the world around us.
LEARNING MORE ABOUT WHAT’S AROUND
Interested in learning more about the flora and fauna nearby? Both the L.A. Zoo and Autry Museum inside the park are great places to start. If you’d like to learn even more, I recommend two must-visit destinations: For plants, the Theodore Payne Foundation in Sun Valley features an extensive nursery of California native plants as well as demonstration gardens and classes. The grounds are located at 10459 Tuxford Street in Sun Valley. Call 818-768-1802 or visit www.theodorepayne.org for more info.
Likewise, the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County has done an incredible job over the past few years of making nature come alive for city dwellers. They have an accessible and informative permanent Nature Lab exhibit about the wildlife present in Southern California; their native and edible garden will help you identify plants you see out in the wild and give you ideas for your own garden; and they have a variety of programs both on-site and in the field, including bioblitz days. The museum is located at 900 West Exposition Boulevard in Los Angeles. Call 213-763-3466 or visit https://nhm.org for information and exhibits.
FAMOUS ANIMALS OF GRIFFITH PARK
Griffith Park’s history with famous critters arguably begins in the 1950s, when a kangaroo named Parky walked the grounds on weekends with a pith-helmeted ranger who handed out park information and encouraged visitors not to litter. At the same time, the much-criticized Griffith Park Zoo had an infamous resident named Ivan the Terrible—a nine-hundred-pound male polar bear who killed three other polar bears in the zoo and was generally feared by everyone in Los Angeles.
But the area has had some more recent, friendlier famous animals, including Reggie the Alligator, who was illegally raised in captivity and released in Harbor City in 2005. He was spotted in a lake there for several years and became a media sensation before being captured in 2007 and moved to the L.A. Zoo. Later that year, Reggie escaped his habitat and was found soaking up some rays near the loading dock. He still resides in the zoo today.
The L.A. Zoo’s most recent famous addition is Hope, a California condor. Hope was hatched in captivity in Idaho and was meant to be released into the wild as part of a rehabilitation effort for the species, but when they noticed she had a wing injury, she was instead moved to the L.A. Zoo, where she now serves as an educational ambassador and the world’s first California condor to participate in a free-flight bird show.
Arguably the most famous animal inside Griffith Park, however, is the male mountain lion known as P-22. First discovered on wildlife cameras by Angeleno biologist Miguel Ordeñana in 2012, P-22 has become something of a mascot for the cause of urban wildlife in L.A. To reach Griffith Park, P-22 had to cross the 101 and I-405, two of the nation’s largest and busiest freeways. He has helped Angelenos become more aware of the dangers of rodenticide, more appreciative of the natural world in their city, and more generous toward an ambitious project to build the world’s largest wildlife crossing over the 101 at Liberty Canyon. He even has his own Facebook page and Instagram account (www.facebook.com/p22mountainlionofhollywood and
