Alum Rock, the City of San Jose’s oldest park, was jumpin’ last weekend with people and plants. Wildflowers colored the pathways and trails. Everything from pink lipstick-tinted bleeding hearts to blue dicks. Yellow buttercups bumped up against California’s bright orange poppies.
Plants seemed to be poking out of every volcanic nook and cranny. Ferns poured down hillsides like waterfalls — polypodies, sword ferns, wood ferns and coffee ferns. At one point, we noticed an almost foot-wide nest on the ground, shaped like a pentagon, right off the trail. Asked around, but nobody could even say if it was built by a mammal or a bird. 
The park was named for the mineral aluminum, which was thought to have been in one of the large rocks at that time, but it actually does not appear here. To get more info on the park, click here: http://www.sanjoseca.gov/Facilities/Facility/Details/176
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