FRIENDS OF EDGEWOOD NATURAL PRESERVE
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FRIENDS OF EDGEWOOD NATURAL PRESERVE
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By Bob Young This is the third of a series of articles describing the flowers pictured in our wildflower brochure. — ed.
Bush Lupine is shown in the brochure "Common Native Wildflowers of Edgewood," published jointly by the Santa Clara Valley Chapter of the California Native Plant Society and Friends of Edgewood Natural Preserve. Botanists have named our Bush Lupine with descriptive names such as Silver Lupine, White-foliaged Lupine, or Bentham’s Bush Lupine. This last name gives reference to George Bentham who officially registered the plant in 1833. He gave the plant its scientific name Lupinus albifrons, (pronounced loo-PIE-nuhs AL-bih-frohns). The origin of the word Lupinus comes from the Latin word for wolf, Lupus. The wolf, being a predator and a robber of livestock, was chosen as the basis of the word lupine because it was thought at one time that lupines robbed the soil of nutrients. We know now that, on the contrary, lupines aid in restoring nitrogen to the soil. The second part of the scientific name means white foliage, from the Latin albi - white, and frons - leaf or foliage. Bush Lupine is a shrubby, three to four foot tall, perennial plant in the Pea Family. It is found in California west of the desert regions, and in southern Oregon and northwestern Baja California. It is abundant in the Coast Ranges and occasionally in the Sierra foothills on brush-covered slopes and on open ridges below 6000 feet. On Edgewood Natural Preserve the plant blooms from March to May. Many pleasantly perfumed violet to lavender-colored individual flowers are on each flower stalk. The flower has a bottom keel, wings on the sides, and a banner on top. The seeds, being in the Pea Family, are found in pods. However, unlike edible peas or beans, lupine seeds are poisonous. You will notice that deer eat neither the seeds nor the leaves. Lupine leaves resemble the palm of your hand, but with seven to ten fingers, rather than five. In her book Hardy Californians, Lester Rowntree remarks that "…even when out of bloom their silvery or gray-green mounds are a conspicuous note in the landscape." |
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