Towards the end of his life, Brown regularly started spending time in Southern California, having commissioned Stanley Tigerman to design him a home that we would call his "Temple of Painting" in La Conchita, California. Inspired by the landscape and character of the American Southwest for much of his adult life, the change of scenery was uplifting to Brown's spirit as his health declined due to complications from living with HIV/AIDS. This simple but elegant painting documents the California wildrose, scientifically known as rosa californica. Similar to his legendary late-career "Bonsai" paintings, this piece sees the wildrose dwarfing the human figures in the composition, despite being a fairly small flower. The magnificence of landscape, including rolling hills and whorls of clouds in harmony with the wildrose's branches, overwhelms the human figures and leaves them as only a footnote to the painting as a whole, perhaps a commentary from Brown on human impermanence when compared to the magnitude of the natural world.