The Mystery of the Bowman Mystery Flower

The Matilija Poppy - It Shouldn't Be Here

Positive I.D. Yields More Questions than Answers

Every motorist traveling Highway 80 between Bowman and Bell Road has at one time marveled in wonderment at a tangled bramble of alien-looking plants that thrive on a dry knoll along the frontage road. The plants bloom with giant white flowers during the hottest time of the year.

The flowers each have six large white wrinkled petals. The large yellow center gives the appearance of fried eggs.

Its name is the Matilija Poppy and it's supposedly only found in the southern coast ranges of California and in northern Mexico.

No one knows how or why this plant has migrated so far from home, but there just happens to be a tragic and mysterious legend that follows this plant wherever it roams:

"Legend has it that long before the Spanish built San Buenaventura Mission in 1784, the Chumash Indians built lodges at Matilija Springs and immersed themselves in the hot water bubbling up from the earth as a religious and purification ritual. A battle between the Spanish settlers and the Chumash Indians in 1824 ended with the natives losing their sacred healing grounds, historians have written. According to legend, Chief Matilija was so filled with grief at the death of a daughter that he jumped to his own death from a rock just below Matilija's springs. Native Chumash say his remains are buried below a white cross at the site and that each spring a pure white flower that has become known as the Matilija poppy blooms on his grave."

More Pictures

Walk, Don't Run, to see the Bowman Mystery Poppy

Mystery Poppy has Easy Freeway Access from Bowman Road or Bell Road

More Mysteriously Bent and Twisted Trees and Plants:

Treetennas | Forked Pines | Giant Artichokes | Colossal Wisteria | Bowman Mystery Flower | Unauthorized Tree Felling | Tree Ranch Review | Amazing Acorn Autumn | Symbiotic Tree Fence | Giant Artichokes | 90-degree Tree

Rural Mysteries of the North Fork Polygon