Kingdom: Plantae

Phylum: Magnoliophyta -- flowering plants

Class: Magnoliopsida -- dicots

Order: Fabales

Family: Fabaceae -- pea

Common Name: big-leaf lupine, Washington lupine

Species Code: LUPO2

Origin: Native to moist meadows, riparian areas and moist open forests of northern and western North America.

Rare: no

Form: forb, perennial from a branched crown; stems stout, erect, 50-100 cm tall, simple, usually fistulose at the base, glabrous or sparsely hirsute, the hairs rust colored.

Mature height: 20-40 inches

Duration: perennial

Longevity: short-lived

Habitat Type: wetland, prairie, forest

Wetland Indicator Status: FAC+

Leaves: basal leaves few; cauline leaves alternate, long petiolate, shorter above, palmately compound with 9-17 leaflets; leaflets elliptic-lanceolate, 4-10 cm long with acute tips, mostly glabrous or glabrate on the upper surface, strigillose or hirsute on the lower.

Flowers: papilionaceous; perfect; raceme dense, to 40 cm long, open; flowers 10-15 mm long, bluish to violet, glabrous; calyx strigillose to sericeus, sometimes saccate but not spurred, equally 2-lipped, entire; banner glabrous, strongly reflexed, shorter than wings; wings glabrous.

Flower color: blue/purple

Bloom: May, June

Fruit: pods 3-5 cm long, hairy; seeds 4-8, grayish with brown mottling.

Characteristics:
Reproduces sexually by seed.
As a genus, Lupinus is highly variable and plastic. This is further complicated by interbreeding, resulting in a highly confusing taxonomy, a large number of infraspecific taxa, and a long list of synonyms.
L. burkei in Piper & Beattie 1914, St. John 1963, and in Davis 1953.
n=24 (Hitchcock et al 1969, Baldwin et al 2004).
2n=96 (University of British Columbia 2003).
Flowers are perfect.
Fruit is a legume.
Seeds are ejected explosively when the pods dehisce.
Lupines contain poisonous alkaloids in varying amounts depending on species, plant part, maturity, and possibly ecotype. Seeds and fruits have the highest concentrations.
Lupinus species are hosts for the larva of the persius duskywing (Erynnis persius), the arrowhead blue (Glaucopsyche piasis), the acmon blue (Icaricia acmon), Boisduval's blue (Icaricia icarioides ssp. pembina), and the silvery blue (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) butterflies (Pocewicz 2005).

Sun requirement: full sun to partial shade

Soil moisture: mesic to marginally wet

Fire: Lupines resist fire by having deep taproots and the ability to form new shoots from the taproot. The new shoots will produce seed the year following a fire (McLean 1969).

Hazards: Lupines may be toxic to livestock.

Sowing time: Unscarified seed should be fall sown. Scarified seed can be spring sown.

Transplant time: spring

Pretreatment: seeds benefit from scarification

Seed yield: high

Seed harvest: medium difficulty

Seed first harvest: first season

Seed cleaning: easy

Planting duration: short

Seed insect problem: yes

Seed shatter: high

Seed size: large

Seed harvest date: no information available

Herbaria: Specimen data and digital resources from The Consortium of Pacific Northwest Herbaria

Key words: native perennial wetland upland forb

Remarks:
Propagation:
Lupines have an impermeable seed coat and germination is enhanced by scarification.
Reproduces sexually by seed.

Notes: Lupinus polyphyllus prefers mesic conditions, but sometimes occurs on drier sites. It is one of the parents of the Russell lupines commonly grown in gardens but it did not survive in the xeriscape garden at the University of Idaho Arboretum. Common names include bigleaf lupine, large-leaved lupine (Skinner et al 2005).

References:
Baldwin, B.G., S. Boyd, B.J. Ertter, D.J. Keil, R.W. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken (eds). 2004. Jepson Online Interchange for California Floristics. University and Jepson Herbaria, University of California, Berkeley, CA. Accessed 11/19/09 online at http://ucjeps.berkeley.edu/interchange.html

Davis, Ray J. 1952. Flora of Idaho. Wm. C. Brown, Dubuque, Iowa. 827 pp.

Hitchcock, C. Leo, Arthur Cronquist, Marion Ownbey, and J.W. Thompson. 1969. Vascular Plants of the Pacific Northwest. University of Washington Press. Seattle, WA. 5 vol.

McLean, Alastair. 1969. Fire Resistance of Forest Species as Influenced by Root Systems. Journal of Range Management 22:120-122.

Piper, C.V., and R.K. Beattie. 1914. The Flora of Southeastern Washington and Adjacent Idaho. Press of the New Era Printing Company, Lancaster, PA. 296 pp.

Pocewicz, Amy. 2005. Host Plants of Palouse Butterfly Species. 2 page handout to accompany the April 2005 presentation to the Palouse Prairie Foundation.

Skinner, David M., Paul Warnick, Bill French, and Mary Fauci. 2005. More Palouse Forbs for Landscaping. USDA NRCS Pullman Plant Materials Center and Palouse Prairie Foundation. Online at http://www.wsu.edu/pmc_nrcs/Docs/More_Forbs_for_Landscaping.pdf

St. John, Harold. 1963. Flora of Southeastern Washington and of Adjacent Idaho. 3rd edition. Outdoor Pictures. Escondido, CA.

University of British Columbia. 2003. British Columbia Flora. University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research. Accessed 9/1/09 online at http://www.bcflora.org/

Links:
Plant Profile from the USDA PLANTS Database
Species information from the University of Washington Herbarium