Lupine and California golden poppies are already blooming everywhere. They’re more than beautiful, and tougher than they look: Wildflowers can teach us a lot about surviving drought. A new study shows wildflowers employ a mixture of strategies, some intentionally risky and others cautiously conservative, both above-ground and below, to thrive in conditions that can vary widely from year to year. With climate change making drought more frequent and more severe, this work hones the ability of land managers to predict which plants will thrive in which ecosystems in the future. 

Other drought and plant science news:

• Los Angeles Times: For the first time, a warm winter just wiped out SoCal’s little-known cherry harvest
• Spectrum News: UCLA researchers identify oak tree populations as well adapted to climate change