Once you know what sticky monkey-flower looks like, you’ll see it everywhere. Along trails and roads throughout central California and in the Sierra foothills, there it is—sparse clumps of sticky green shrubbery with masses of small (1”-long) pale orange or apricot-colored flowers, often clinging to outrageous slopes on the poorest imaginable soil.
A member of the snapdragon family, sticky monkey-flower (mimulus auranticiacus) gets the “monkey” part of its name from the flower’s supposed resemblance to a little monkey face. Maybe, maybe not. As for the “sticky,” that’s from the resinous terpenes its long, narrow leaves secrete, and which discourage the larvae of the variable checkerspot butterfly from dining too greedily. The resin also makes sticky monkey-flower pretty flammable, relatively speaking, come fire season. The flowers last through all but the hottest part of the summer and are a favorite of hummingbirds.
Variations of the monkey-flower (“sticky” is just one) are found throughout the length of California in shades ranging from white to brick-red and sporting various features, levels of drought tolerance, etc. For example, a delicate-looking pale apricot variation with frilly leaves called mimulus bifidus lives in the Sierra foothills, Pinnacles and Santa Lucia Mountains near Big Sur. Seep monkey-flowers like water and have bright yellow flowers. Southern California has spectacular red specimens. And it goes on and on, monkeys everywhere…
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