Silver bush lupine
The tall lupine: a woody, silver-leaved shrub to about 150 cm, holding violet spikes above the burn.
In brief
Lupinus albifrons, Fabaceae.
- Evergreen woody shrub, to about 150 cm
- Native to California and Oregon
- Flowers March to June
- Fruit a hairy pod
Where it grows
Dry slopes, ridges and open chaparral through the Coast Ranges and the Sierra Nevada foothills.
When it blooms
March to June, earlier than the annual lupine that carpets the ground below it.
Seed and fruit
A hairy pod that dries, twists and flicks its seed away from the parent. Like all lupines it fixes its own nitrogen, which is how it establishes on burnt ground with no soil worth the name.
Here
Photographed at sunrise on March 29, 2025. This is the one people mean when they say the lupine here is a bush: silky silver-grey palmate leaves on a woody frame, with the flower spikes standing clear above it. It is a different species entirely from the low carpet, and it comes into flower first.
By Yggdrasil Springs
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