LUPI'NUS MUTA'BILIS. 
CHANGEABLE LUPINE. 
Class. Order. 
MONADELPHIA. DECANDBIA. 
Natural Order. 
LECCMINOS*;. 
Native of 
Height. 
Flowers in 
Duration. 
Introduced 
Bogota. 
5 feet. 
July, Oct. 
Perennial. 
in 182.5. 
No. 338. 
The word Lupinus, from lupus, a wolf, has been 
thought, by some authors, to allude to the plant be- 
ing sometimes eaten by wolves; but the vegetable 
is more generally understood to have borne some 
fancied comparison with the animal, from the de- 
vastation occasioned by its rapidly spreading over 
the soil. Mutabilis, from the Latin, changeable; 
expressive of the mutability of its colours. 
The flowers of this handsome Lupine are delight- 
fully fragrant ; and their inconstancy of colour is 
probably not fully known. Our figure shows their 
usual colouring; opening white, attaining partial 
shades of yellow, and ultimately, tints of purple. 
We have seen plants, raised from imported seeds, 
with flowers much darker. 
Though naturally a tender perennial, this Lupine 
may be most successfully cultivated as a half-hardy 
annual. Fonvard the young plants in a hotbed, 
and turn them into the borders in May: they will 
ornament the garden till unrelenting frosts stop 
short their gay existence. Autumn-raised plants, 
protected through the winter, seldom attain the 
luxuriance of those raised in spring. 
Sweet’s FI. Card. 130. 
