WILD LUPINE 



Lupinus perennis L. 



May - June Denizen of the sand country, the blue spires of 



Sands, dune country hipine stand erect in the blazing spring sun- 

 shine- 

 Sand country plants are especially fitted to bloom in the limited 

 haunts which tliey prefer. They must be able to subsist on moisture 

 which drains in deeply when it comes ; at other times they live in a dry, 

 desert-like habitat. A sand plant must have a deep root to go down to 

 any water far below the surface, and must have leaves which are able to 

 survive the baking heat and intense light of summer. Ornamental and 

 interesting plants grow in the sand country, there where old sand dunes 

 lie as sand fields along the river. 



Blue lupine is the only one of its kind in Illinois; on the other 

 side of the Mississippi, westward through the plains and peaks to the 

 Pacific, other lupines are abundant. The Texas blue-bonnet is a lupine; 

 there are l^rigbt lu|)ines with California poppies in vacant lots in Los An- 

 geles. But from Aiaine to Minnesota and south to the Gulf, always in 

 that favorite sandy soil, the wild lupine grows and blooms and makes pods 

 of small peas for the horned larks and bob-whites to eat. In the time of 

 the Indians who camped along the rivers, the Indian women may have 

 gathered the little lupine peas; they were boiled or roasted and eaten in a 

 land where every edible seed counted in keeping hunger at bay. 



Lupine flowers are the form known as ])ea-shaped — like a small 

 sweet pea, lavender-blue, on sbort, hairy stems arranged circularly 

 around the upright stalk. The leaves are ])aliuat('ly compound, aiTangcd 

 like fingers of a hand, and when the sun is too hot, they fold themselves 

 in half and droop on their mobile pedicels. 



83 



