We ... my wife and I ... didn't see the butterfly ... it was a cloudy, chilly day, not at all butterfly-friendly ... but we did find Kincaid's Lupine, thanks to a volunteer there, who was checking off plant species on a list as a kind of semi-annual botanical physical.
Kincaid's Lupine is a low grower, reaching a maximum height of sixteen to thirty inches. Its aromatic flowers have a slightly reflexed and ruffled banner. They - the flowers - are typically a yellowish-cream color with shades of blue streaked across them.
This rare lupine is found primarily in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, in native dry to well-drained but moist grassland habitats; its northern limit is Lewis County, in Washington. If you find a lupine in such a habitat, growing in the company of such wldflowers as Lomatium species, Rose checker-mallow (Sidalcea virgata), Hooker's Catchfly (Silene hookeri), or Tolmie's Mariposa (Calochortus tolmiiei), it's probably Kincaid's Lupine.
Kincaid's Lupine is a subspecies of Sulphur Lupine (L. sulphureus), which is the only yellow-flowered lupine in Washington. It is widespread at lower elevations east of the Cascades. (And, of course, it was another feather in my cap, were I prone to a cap with feathers.)
The endangered Fender's Blue butterfly, which lays its eggs on Kincaid's Lupine, was once thought to be extinct. Known from collections made between 1929 and 1937, it was rediscovered in 1989.
Once a thriving little piece of shiny blue tissue paper bobbing about on swells of wind and breeze washing across Oregon prairies, this butterfly has lost 99% of its habitat. To add insult to injury, the remaining paltry 1% is now threatened by invasive species such as that damnable Scotch Broom (Cytisus scorparius), which is, ironically, related to Kincaid's Lupine.
Fender's Blue butterfly is a relative of the endangered Karner Blue, as well as a host of other small, more abundant blue butterflies, many of which are never far from a lupine species or two.
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