Pink, poppy-sized flowers show up with a flamboyant burst of color on the browning hillsides. Each of the four delicate petals are dotted with a dark red splotch. This is farewell to spring, or Clarkia amoena.
There are several species of Clarkia in Marin that differ slightly from one another; this species can be either white or pink. You can distinguish it from the other similar species because it has red splotches instead of a red ring on the petals, and the buds don’t droop. These flowers seem to thrive on dry road cuts – I’ve seen them growing along Highway One in several different places (these photos were taken just south of Tomales).
Flowers Of Marin 
Clarkias can be difficult to identify and the keys easily misinterpreted. Many older herbarium records have recently been re-assigned to different species than C. amoena or are of cultivated origin . For example the Calflora perported-distribution map includes many of these old mis-identified records dating from when C. rubicunda was thought the same species . A better idea of the distribution of C. amoena, as the sp. is now circumscribed, is on the Jepson Herbarium e-Flora website.