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Lower elevation California is 99 percent covered by several dozen species of annual European grasses that start germinating every year, after an inch or two of precipitation from October to December. This picture is of one of the most common of these weeds, wild oats, taken in Palo Alto on March 2, 2008. With normal rainfall in central and southern California, the seedheads will start forming like clockwork in late March, and the seeds mature between April 15 and May 1. These annual grasses may be sensing the unusually dry soil conditions, because they are sending up seedheads and the seeds are maturing four to six weeks earlier than normal.