Low spears of ruffled purplish leaves sprout from the dappled forest floor of an oak woodland. Small burgundy flowers peer from among the leaves, each shaped like a flattened hood. Three diminutive lip-like petals open upward on the lower edge of the hood, and a strange little proboscis dips downward–shaped like a single eye-stalk from a snail. This is Indian warrior, or Pedicularis densiflora, a common sight blooming in woods and chaparral from January through early spring.
Other cousins of this little flower also have strange appendages on their blossoms; most notable are two species of elephant’s heads that grow in the eastern part of the state–their flowers truly resemble the flared ears and swooping trunk of an elephant. 
Flowers Of Marin 