The Coastal Gardener:

I’ve been gardening in Orange County for a long time, and I’ve been hiking and exploring our local wild areas for even longer. I enjoy plants of any sort, wild or cultivated.

Occasionally, this distinction blurs, and plants from gardens wind up in the wild — not a good thing. More commonly and certainly more preferable, California’s wild plants sometimes find their way to our urban gardens.

Last week, I grabbed my day-pack, a bottle of water, my camera and hat, and went for a hike. For years, I had heard about a natural, free-flowing spring somewhere in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains that offered a year-round supply of water to local plants and animals. I wasn’t exactly certain where the spring was, but I had a general idea.

It would be a six-mile venture in the hot, dry July sun — not a popular time for a local hike. But by 9 a.m., I was on my way.

While walking, I paused occasionally to capture a portrait of a few remnant wildflower friends: wild morning glory, fleabane, clarkia, grindelia and bush penstemon. I was relieved upon arriving at my destination, and I had located the spring. The temperature dropped at least 10 degrees as I entered this shaded, moist, green little oasis, a refuge within the miles of parched, dry landscape surrounding it.

Being the plant enthusiast that I am, I immediately began taking inventory of the exceptional wild plants at this damp little paradise: huge Maidenhair ferns, lush nettles and stachys, rambling gooseberries and California blackberries, mosses, and others. But higher up, on the damp limestone cliffs just out of reach, was a plant I was certain I had never seen before. I fretted over it, snapped two pictures of the stranger and wondered what to call it.

I didn’t know this plant’s identity. I didn’t even know where to begin. Usually, I can at least identify the family a plant belongs to, if not its genus and species, but this one was an alien.