Need an antidote to June gloom? Pay a visit to the spectacular display of wildflowers currently in bloom along the Trailer Canyon Fire Road in the Topanga State Park of the Santa Monica Mountains.

This 10,000 acre state park hosts at least nine different plant communities, including offshore kelp beds, coastal strands, salt marshes, freshwater marshes, chaparral, oak woodlands, oak savanna and grasslands. But it's the ruggedly beautiful coastal sage scrub plant community that thrives in Trailer Canyon, with its sandy seaside slopes, damp ocean breezes and moderate year-round temperatures. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that only 15 percent of the coastal sage scrublands have escaped destruction by agriculture and urbanization, and even the plants of Trailer Canyon are tucked among the housing developments of the Pacific Palisades.

These coastal plants produce showy petals of every hue well into the summer. On a recent hike, highlights included the cheerful yellows and reds of California brittlebush and California coastal lotus, the blazing oranges of sticky monkey and parasitic dodder weed, the rich lavenders of lupin and sage, the delicate pink of a rare mariposa lily and the soft white of yuccas.

Reach Contributor Cristy Lytal here.