If we could only get Joe Spano to wax poetic about our wild flowers

I’ve been studying up on fiddlesticks and red maids. I’ve even discovered bladderpod and tidy tips.

These aren’t new smartphone games; they’re actually all California wildflowers, and my interest in them has nothing to do with a recent trip to Los Angeles. While I was there, I visited one garden in the uber tony Bel-Air neighborhood and saw miles of hedges clipped to within an inch of their lives, arches that would soon be filled with climbing roses and a few beautiful Camellias in flower. But there was nary a fiddlestick (Amsinckia menziesii) or red maid (Calandrinia menziesii) in sight.

My newfound fascination with California wildflowers is wholly due to the wild flower hotline, which offers weekly recorded updates on what is blooming in central and southern California. For more than 40 years, the report has been narrated by actor Joe Spano, who played the NASA director in “Apollo 13” and Detective Henry Goldblume in “Hill Street Blues.”

You can read the report at the Theodore Payne Foundation website, but you’d miss Spano’s lyrical, almost poetic delivery and vivid descriptions of foothill poppies that are “opening their bountiful, pale yellow blossoms slowly as the temperature warms. Soon they will carpet the hillsides.”

I’m not the only non-Californian checking into the hotline, which will certainly gain listeners in what is predicted to be a superbloom year, thanks to prolific rain in parts of the state. With my curiosity piqued, I often look up the plants described in the updates, and I’ve become captivated with the world of these western U.S. native plants.

It’s Hollywood-level marketing for one of nature’s best shows, so you could be forgiven for not realizing that there’s some excellent spring-blooming native plant action right here in Ozaukee County.

The show is admittedly a bit tamer than a California superbloom, but the county’s parks, forests and nature centers offer opportunities to admire blooms that range from delicate to bizarre.

Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum) grows in large colonies, shading the ground with its umbrella of foliage, but you’ll have to peek under its leaves to spot its shy flowers. Shooting stars (Dodecatheon meadia) send up clusters of white to dark pink flowers on long stems that rise above the foliage.

Trilliums are among the most beloved and easy-to-recognize of the native spring ephemerals, and six varieties are native to Wisconsin. Plant hunters who are willing to stroll a little slower and pay close attention might be rewarded with sightings of the diminutive spring beauty (Claytonia virginica) and yellow trout lily (Erythronium americanum).

Maybe we could build excitement for our own wild flower show by getting Spano to record weekly updates of where to find the latest blooming beauties in Wisconsin.

I can hear his narration now: “Warmer days are slowly rousing spring wild flowers from their slumber. Dutchman’s breeches, sparkling white bloodroot and the nodding blue flowers of Virginia bluebells will delight you.”

Call (818) 768-1802, Ext. 7 to hear Spano’s weekly wild flower reports.