It’s said that in early Spanish California, women would decorate their skirts with the flowers of Pholistoma auritum on festive occasions, giving it its popular name, “Fiesta Flower.”
Why is this charming, L.A.-local annual, with its diminutive, purple-ish flowers beloved by pollinators almost never offered at native plant nurseries? Could it be that it’s such a prolific self-seeder that it can overwhelm smaller gardens? Maybe. But not to worry: the vine-like Fiesta Flower does tend to spread quickly but is “self-limiting” and completely fades away by the end of spring, leaving only a mat of wispy, paper-thin leaves and – if you leave them to dry out – a zillion seed pods.
In our local hillsides, you will most often find Fiesta Flower sprawling on the ground in the semi-shady understory of Oak, Elderberry and Toyon, where it also likes to clamber up the scaffolding of their sturdy branches. Plant it in the vicinity of similar trees or shrubs to lend your garden a touch of the wild.
