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Treasure of the Sierra Nevada

© Gregg Pasterick

Except for a trip to the Rose Bowl about fifteen years ago, I had never been to California. Safely ensconced in the lap of Ohio, I contented myself with Middle America flora and fauna to go along with my Middle America life. In all my mad impetuous years, the furthest west I had ever managed to get was Indiana.

That all changed recently with a visit to the Sierra Nevada Mountains and several days hiking along the Yuba River. Among the rainbow of wildflowers - Pretty Face, Donkey’s Ears, Applegate’s Paintbrush, Lewis Monkeyflower, Showy Penstemon, Scarlet Gilia, Pussypaws, all new species to me - what thrilled me the most were the several varieties of lupine (Lupinus). Other than escaped cultivars and hybrids that grow along roadsides, the Eastern U.S. has little more to offer in the way of lupine than Wild Lupine (L. perennis). California, I have discovered, has over 80 species of this lovely wildflower.

The most abundant of the lupine species I encountered was also the smallest, Brewer’s Lupine (L. breweri). This type of lupine is unusual in that it grows nearly flat on the ground. Its woody stem is prostrate or only slightly erect, and the plant does not exceed 8” in height. The flowers and palmately compound leaves are typical of lupines, though the inflorescence (cluster of flowers) is only 1 to 2” tall. Like many lupines, the flowers are blue to violet, these with a white or yellow splotch on the upper petal or banner. The leaves are hairy and silvery.

I found this lupine growing in large dense mats of violet and silver. Where it grew near the wet soil along the river it was bordered by the tall luxurious Broad-leaf Lupine (L. polyphyllus). What a lovely contrast these two species made.

The Broad-leaf Lupine, as tall and bold as the Brewer’s Lupine wasn’t, displayed richly deep violet flowers on spike-like inflorescences about a foot tall. These 5’ tall plants, like their smaller cousins, attracted a host of butterflies, most of which were blues and coppers.

I found two or three other varieties of lupine, which may or may not have included Spider Lupine (L. benthamii) and Bush Lupine (L. albifrons) - lupines are notoriously difficult for us simple folk to identify. Spider Lupine is so named because of its long, extremely narrow and widely spaced leaflets. Bush Lupine, as its name suggests, is a bushy plant that produces a lush floral display. Because almost every part of this plant is covered with fine silver-white hairs, from a distance, it appears silvery. For this reason, it is also called silver lupine. Both species, of course, display spikes of blue to violet flowers.