Plants

Narcotics agents said Tuesday they had little doubt that the nearly 90,000-acre La Brea fire was started by Mexican drug traffickers who were tending a large, sophisticated marijuana farm planted on the side of a mountain. The growers apparently fled as firefighters approached the source of the fire and are still at large, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said. Their abandoned site was similar to other illicit plots planted by Mexican nationals and discovered by drug agents in recent years.

Olive green above, dusky purple below -- these are the leaves of Arabian lilac, an evergreen shrub that provides year-round color in the garden. Arabian lilac (Vitex trifolia 'Purpurea') is not a true lilac but, rather, a cousin to the chaste tree (Vitex agnus-castus), a Mediterranean native. The term "lilac" comes from those purple-bottomed leaves, pleasantly fragrant and occasionally divided into three ovals ("trifolia" means "three leaves").

LIVING downtown with limited space to garden doesn't necessarily mean a bleak, gritty landscape, short on plants, with only the urban skyline to stare at. It can be lush and green, extremely livable and packed with fascinating plants. Take a few lessons from the Northwest, where garden designers recently mounted elaborate displays using containers and planters to artfully landscape small urban spaces.

Recent downpours have turned Orange County foothills charred by October's ferocious Santiago fire a vivid emerald green. From a distance, the explosion of life offers a powerful testament to nature's resilience. Up close, it also provides a worrisome omen for the months ahead.

The ORCHID cactus might be called the Cinderella of the garden world. Most of the year the plant, with disheveled, arched, trailing branches, is easy to ignore. But from February through June, magnificent flowers, some as large as 13 inches across, pop from the notched branches in brilliant shades of red, orange, violet, yellow and gold. Nature's clock runs out after four days at most, and the blooms close and die. But happily the show continues.

Jon keeley is standing on a dirt road in western Riverside County, looking out across the Box Springs Mountains. Instead of a thick coat of native shrubs, the slopes are covered with a shriveled tangle of mustard, wild oats and red brome. Too much fire is the culprit. Since 1957, there have been 33 fires larger than 100 acres in the Box Springs -- more than the area's native coastal sage and chaparral could withstand.

Environmentalists were elated when the state made a blanket decision to save an all but extinct coastal plant. But their joy evaporated when officials decided that the best way to preserve the endangered Ventura marsh milk vetch was to cover a corner of the Ballona Wetlands in Playa del Rey with an actual blanket.

ED READ bends over a tray of plants in the Cal State Fullerton greenhouse and gently tickles the leaf of a Venus flytrap. Twice. Two leaves snap shut in a 10th of a second. "It's like a pseudo-memory," he says. "Touch it once and nothing happens, but if you do it again within a few seconds, it will close." Attract, entrap, digest. Understanding how a Venus flytrap turns a fly into food is pretty easy. But keeping the flytrap happy and healthy? Not so much.

Someone is swiping the cactuses in this upscale desert city. Over the last six months, there has been an epidemic of thefts. Officials say they have lost nearly $20,000 worth of the plants. The main target is the golden barrel, which, depending on its size, can fetch anywhere from $100 to $800 each.

Cesar Lopez and his crew resemble human weed eaters, dispensing with 15 acres of illegal crops a day in the sweltering hills of north-central Colombia. Guarded by a cordon of 120 anti-narcotics police officers, the group uses metal rods to uproot bush after bush on the steep hillside. In a gully below stands a thatched-roof laboratory where farmers processed a kilogram of coca paste a week, worth about $1,000 each, before fleeing last month, police said.