Larkspur (Delphinium) are in the buttercup family (Ranunculaceae), and are easily recognizable by their pointy spurs, formed by fused petal-like sepals. Like all Ranunculaceae, the leaves are palmately lobed and toothed.
As the name implies, the canyon larkspur grows on steep slopes. This season I've seen it on highway cutbanks (as in these photos taken near Orr Springs on Orr Springs road), and on steep coastal bluffs.
On my Flickr page, I titled this photo "goldfish in a green sea." The canyon larkspur, with their characteristic spurs set horizontally on their stems, and growing in patches of hundreds of red flowers, looked just like a school of fish swimming amongst the green grass on the steep grassy slope they grew on. Or, as Mary Elizabeth Parsons says in her 1921 field guide, "it would require no great stretch of the imagination to fancy these blossoms a company of pert little red-coated elves clambering over the loose, slender stems." (I think Ms. Parsons was the original bloom-blogger!)
The photos are from May 1, taken near Orr Springs.
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