The deliriously blue-purple conical shaped flowers you see shimmering along our arid coastline every spring is the Pride of Madeira. I like to call it the Pride of Malibu. Its botanical name is Echium Candicans which sounds like “eating candy” to me. Don’t try to eat it. From a distance this biennial subshrub looks fuzzy and soft, but in fact it is quite a defensive plant with taut spikes that jut outward from the cob at its core. Look closely, and imagine as I do a Chopard bracelet made up of rows and rows of saphire and amethyst florets. Nature’s jewels. And attract, it does.

I leave this borage to the butterflies and bees to contently hum and flutter about the bright dome heads when in bloom. Let them eat cake! So beautiful are these freaky flowers, you might want to handle their “clusters.” Warning! Do not touch without gloves, lest nature’s beauty will bite back causing serious skin chafing and allergic reactions.

At the instant I photographed this Pride of Madeira with my iPhone, its beacon of color filled me with the anticipation of spring. Even now I marvel at the way the light upon the flower creates an illusion that light radiates from its interior.

The Pride of Madeira is a native plant that originates from an island of the same name off the coast of Portugal, near Morocco. Madeira means wood in Spanish, which makes sense since the island once had vast forests.

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