Popular Studies of California Wild Flowers 17 



Lupines 



By Bertha M. Rice 



Blue and Gold, the college colors of the University of California, 

 are said to have been chosen originally because of the great abun- 

 dance of Golden Poppies and Blue Lupines in the vicinity. The 

 choice could not have been a more pleasing one at any rate; for 

 these beautiful blooms still haunt the locality and companion the 

 wayfarer on many pleasant journeys throughout the State. Their 

 beautiful colors are portrayed in numerous flowery landscapes, 

 adorning our art galleries and exhibited by art dealers. Such vivid 

 scenes probably seem an exaggeration to any one never having 

 viewed these gay contrasts in California's open fields ; but Dame 

 Nature is at her brilliant best on the Pacific Coast, where her color 

 combinations are at times a bit startling, but wholly satisfactory. 



Wonderfully good friends are the golden poppies and blue 

 lupines, though widely different as to family relations. Both are 

 "Royal Good Fellows," not nectar bearing, but exceedingly generous 

 with their pollen to their insect friends. As night approaches they 

 grow sleepy, and carefully tuck their petals around their precious 

 pollen to protect it from the dew and other harmful influences. They 

 seem determined to make the most of their bright flower lives and 

 they are prime favorites with lovers of the outdoor world. But the 

 Lupine is better fitted to win out in the struggle for existence; the 

 Poppy, more easily uprooted, is gradually disappearing from many 

 of its habitats. 



When speaking of Lupines, we must remember that the family 

 is an exceedingly large and puzzling one. There are more than 

 fifty species in California. An attempt to list them here would be 

 useless. But they are not all blue by any means. They flower in 

 all shades of blue, purple, lavender, yellow, pink, and white, and are 

 mostly annuals or perennials ; a few are herbaceous or woody ; many 

 varieties are of a shrubby growth. 



The small Blue Lupine, L. micranthus Dougl., so plentiful 

 throughout California, on plains and foothills, is one of the most 

 common varieties. Its billowing sheets of delicate colors lend glad- 

 ness to the springtime. As the season advances, their delicate blue 

 and white blossoms, through fertilization, assume more of a purplish 

 cast, and likewise remind us that summer is advancing. 



In early days, giant Lupines grew in some of the arroyos to a 

 height of twelve feet or more. Three or four clusters together are 

 described as forming a mammoth bouquet, ninety feet around. But 

 it is rarely ever that one comes across such a truly aboriginal bouquet 

 nowadays. Fremont told of his mounted cavalcade riding through 

 seas of Lupine, where the blue flower spikes towered above their 

 heads on horseback ; and Edwin Markham writes : "I have frequently 

 seen whole hillsides given over to a sea of blue Lupines, head high." 

 Thoreau wrote of "hills blued with Lupine," and occasionally one 

 may still see just such a sight as that whole hillsides, glorified with 

 its blueness, blue as the skies bending over. 



