Rare Butterscotch California Poppy
Rising from a dense spring mixture of wildflowers, this California poppy carries an unusual butterscotch coloration. Softer and more muted than the saturated orange most often associated with the species, its amber-toned petals make it immediately distinct from the more familiar orange and yellow forms of California poppy.
California poppies are capable of subtle color variation, but a flower with this true butterscotch tone is rare to encounter growing naturally in the wild. The muted color stands out even more because it appears within a crowded patch of spring annuals that includes white and pale-yellow layia, miniature lupines, phacelia, goldfields, coreopsis, fiddlenecks, popcorn flowers and desert dandelions.
By 2010, the great Gorman displays that once covered broad hillsides had already become far less dependable. Smaller discoveries such as this became part of what made returning to the landscape so compelling: not only the possibility of a broad bloom but the chance of finding unexpected variation within the surviving wildflower fields. Several unopened buds on the same California poppy plant carried the same unusual butterscotch coloration, showing that the distinctive color was not limited to a single flower.